


A Brother's Lament (A Slow Death)

by innerglow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (one scene), (up to 5x22), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Blood and Violence, Bottom Dean, Breathplay, Canon Compliant, Dark, First Time, Horror, M/M, Serial Killer Dean, Soulless Sam Winchester, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:54:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7063837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerglow/pseuds/innerglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>(Post Swan Song Au)</i> Dean Winchester loses his Brother to a big, gaping hole in the ground and spends the years following, trying to follow Sam’s wishes--but finding instead, that he’s slowly losing himself, too.   We follow Dean on a five year timeline, of present and the past, down a road that is just as troubling as it is full of grief.  Piece by piece, we start to see just how a loss so devastating, can make someone's balance teeter off the ledge of sanity, into the darker sides of their own desperation.   </p><p><b>A question is posed:</b> What makes a person, soulless?  Is it the literal lack of their soul, or is it instead, due to the horrendous and vile things they’ve done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Thanks:** Oh man, I don’t even know where to start honestly, I have so many people to thank and not a lot of space to do it--but I’ll try my best. First and foremost, I’d really like to thank [Wendy](http://wendy.livejournal.com) over at the [spn-j2-bigbang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com) for running this yearly challenge, for giving us her time / devotion, for keeping it organized and running smoothly. You’re a goddamned champ m’lady! 
> 
> Secondly, this fic would be nothing without Rose | [whoaeasytiger](http://whoaeasytiger.tumblr.com), who was there when [this little, tiny headcanon of what happened to Dean’s leather jacket after swan song was born](http://jerk-bitch.com/post/136986239432/sketchydean-leather-jacket-headcanon-its) and from it was birthed this incredible story that this fic has now become. Thank you for listening to me rant and rave about this fic, for crying with me, for showing me endless inspo pics and for literally being the reason this fic is even here in the first place. 
> 
> Also thank you to my wifey, Lullys | [codependentsamanddean](http://codependentsamanddean.tumblr.com) for supporting me as always and for believing in me. You have cheerleaded me from 10k, to 20k, to now a whopping 45k fic. I can’t believe it. Thank you for always being there and for telling me I don’t suck and that I can do it. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even have signed up for this challenge. So, thanks to you, I reached the finish line (finally!!!!). 
> 
> ALSO, a big-BIG thank you to my amazingly talented artist, Mary | [sketchydean](http://sketchydean.tumblr.com)! I will keep my stance and say it is truly ME who won the lottery this year, because I couldn’t have asked for a kinder, more talented and giving artist! Thank you for screaming to me as you read the fic for the first time, for drawing me amazing pieces and for literally being the angel you are! Your artistry is so beautiful, and it really, truly is an honor to have your artwork on my fic. So, thank you x a million!!! I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am for every second you’ve spent on this fic. 
> 
> Thank you to my beta, Lynn | [trendykitty](http://trendykitty.livejournal.com)! I appreciate you lending me your eyes and buffering any and all kinks this thing may have had, making it as perfect as it can be. It was a joy working with you!
> 
> Lastly, but definitely not least--thank you to the reader. Thank you for clicking on my fic, for giving it a read and your time. It means a shit ton to me, and I hope that by the last page, whether you love / hate it, that you will have enjoyed the ride. Thank you for giving me an endless reason / platform to write and express myself. You guys are all amazing, every single one of you. 
> 
> <3 Karri

* * *

 

**Art by:**  marietwist ([sketchydean](http://sketchydean.tumblr.com)) | [Art Masterpost](http://marietwist.livejournal.com/582.html)  

  **Fic Soundtrack:** [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/buticancarryyou/a-brother-s-lament-a-slow-death-soundtrack)

* * *

 

_“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.” - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables_

_\--_  

  

Toledo, Ohio - 2015  
_(now)_

 

There’s a freight train in his ears, it roars like a black stallion and it’s deafening. It has him cupping his ears, desperately trying to muffle the violent noise, but it just gets louder and more excruciating, feels like his eardrums will burst under the weight of the blaring engine. And the more he tries to shrink away from it, the closer it seems to be--it’s everywhere.

_Thud-thud-thud-thud._

His chest gives a squeeze and his lungs seize and he can’t breathe.

_Thudthudthudthudthud._

The train is wild and alive and churning its wheels and his head feels like it’s going to crack open like an egg and spill all over the place.

_THUD THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD THUD!_

His eyes come awake suddenly, like they were wrapped in plastic before, like he was in an endless fog that's now beginning to clear at the gentle nudging of the morning sun. The world tilts and blurs, his eyes burning like they’re on fire and the roaring of the train begins to fade as he starts to realize it was just the pulse of his heart in his ear.

As the world comes into focus, he feels his body struggling to pull in air through his nose, but it’s a pinhole compared to the ache of his lungs. His jaw is tensed and his teeth are soldiers warring against each other, his mind panicking around the realization that he can’t open his own mouth to breathe and the drowning sensation has him falling forward, trying to calm himself--trying to start with the last thing he can remember.

“D--dean.” His clenched mouth wheezes out. _I’m Dean_ , his mind echoes. _Dean Winchester._

The room swims, his eyes feeling like they’re rolling in their sockets and he feels his stomach lurch with the splash of bile in the back of his throat. And finally, the dam obstructing his nose, clears and in floods the strong and undeniable scent he’s known all his life. It’s metallic and it’s rich, overwhelming with its density. Smells like it’s hanging from every inch of the room that surrounds him and as he looks down at his hands where they clench into the worn carpet, he sees the red stains that match what he smells--

_Blood._

The knowledge has a bigger roar of bile rolling up through his chest like a tidal wave, it’s strong and fierce, and he’s weak and lost. So lost.

He looks up and sees the room around him, notices that it matches the ones he’s spent more than three quarters of his life in, but the where’s and how’s are still a bit fuzzy. He pinches his brain to work, to stop charlie-horsing itself on the information he desperately seeks, and then he notices the body in his peripheral vision.

The body, a male in his late twenties or so, shaggy brown hair and long limbs, is tangled in the sheets, wide eyed and breathless. ‘John Doe’ as Dean quickly names him, is covered in red, the same red that covers his hands. Dean who, looks over the corpse timidly, almost like he’s afraid the man will sit straight up in the bed and ask him what the fuck he’s staring at. Dean who, gets closer and puts his index and middle finger against the man’s lukewarm throat and feels the floor fallout beneath him as he confirms undeniably, that the man is dead.

“What the fuck?” Dean rattles out, his hand snapping away from John Doe’s throat as if it burns just to touch him.

Dean looks down at his hands again, catching the red hue and examines how it smears up his arms and splatters against his bare chest. There’s something dark clawing against his stomach, something nightmarish in its growl and Dean knows with every fiber in his being that it’s telling him that he’s responsible-- _for everything_.

Knows unquestionably, that it was his own hands that violently chased John Doe’s last breath from his lungs.

With the realization, his stomach tilts sharply and he barely makes it to the bathroom, before he pukes everywhere--trying, but failing to keep it in the toilet. His ribs arch desperately as his body tries to hurl the demon inside of him out, trying (and failing again) to expel it from his veins. How fucked up do you have to be to kill someone and not even remember what the fuck happened? Dean’s done many things in his life, but this-- _this_ takes the goddamned cake.

After a few minutes of dry heaving, he watches as the red prints from his hands lie all over the white toilet and something else inside of him snaps awake.

His hunter instinct.

“Fuck.” He hisses, because the place is a goddamned mess and everything points directly towards him. And he doesn’t know what day it is, or what time it is--doesn’t even know how much time he has before eyes will come peering into the room, only to find what he’s done.

The enormity of what has happened, is pushed to the back of Dean’s thoughts as his body goes into autopilot and there’s a single, unmoveable thought in his head-- _remove the evidence_. It repeats like a mantra as he gets to work doing the most basic thing he’s done all his life, extinguish all traces of himself from being cast the finger of blame.

He starts with the big task of removing the sheets from the bed, rolling them in and moving the stiffening body off the other end, leaving both John Doe and the bed stripped completely bare. Shoving the sheets in a black trash bag, Dean tries not to take note of the bruises around John’s throat, tries to pretend that his hands don’t ache with the echo of how furiously he squeezed. He peels his eyes away forcibly and focuses back on the mantra in his head, busying himself again.

John Doe is a heavy mother fucker, or so Dean complains to himself as he hauls the body up and over his shoulder. There’s only one way to remove the evidence of his prints all over this person and unfortunately for Dean, it means hauling the dead sucker into the cheap motel tub to clean him up. The spray from the showerhead is spotty at best and it makes Dean’s job that much harder and painstaking, but he continues--the mantra of survival clear as a bell in his head.

When John Doe’s body is blood (and print) free, Dean gets to work with cleaning under his nails, leaving absolutely nothing to chance. And lucky for him, he always wears condoms when he’s not with-- not with, Dean’s brain stutters around the name that used to be second nature to him. He pinches his eyes closed and takes a deep breath, before continuing with the last nail, his only thought is that he’s lucky he wasn’t that fucked up to not remember the condom.

It’s not until he’s peeling off his boxers a half hour later, the only item of clothing he’d been wearing, that he finds it odd that he is so sure about the condom. In a maze of a mind that is his from last night, he can’t remember fucking shit--but he’s one-hundred percent sure that he was wearing a condom.

Something itches in the back of his brain and his first instinct is to scratch at it, but his stomach stirs and he decides to leave it alone.

He wraps John Doe in a clean sheet that he happened to steal from a housekeeping cart down the way from his room and places him in the middle of the mattress. He leaves the body covered as he works his way around the rest of the room, cleaning every inch of it as best as he can, cleaning it enough that it looks untouched altogether.

It takes him three hours and lots of back breaking labor and sweat, but he stands by the door with his bag in his hand and is confident of his work. He gives one last look to the body on the mattress and he feels words bubble up into his mouth.

“I’m s--so sorry…”

And then he’s out the door and gunning it down the road as fast as he can, leaving the nightmare he woke up to behind him, for what he hopes--is forever.

  

He doesn’t stop for three-hundred miles and he chain smokes the entire length of road he travels. His hands are nervous, his ribs full of anxiety, as the scene he woke up to repeatedly flashes behind his eyes. And when one cigarette ends and the hysteria claws up the back of his throat, he lights another and inhales in deep pulls, just trying to suffocate the rising wave of panic down. He presses his foot down on the accelerator and doesn’t stop the car until the pain in his stomach starts to feel a lot more like hunger than it does sickness.

When he finally pulls into _Lola’s Truck Diner_ ’s parking lot, he parks his car and sits for several seconds before he allows himself to dig out his forgotten cell phone from the glovebox. There’s twenty missed calls, ten voicemails and a number of texts--all from Lisa. His lungs heave out a heavy sigh and he looks through the texts first. The first one coming from two days ago.   

>   _12:03pm, two days ago:_ “Hey, you’re not answering your phone. I hope you’re okay, please call me.”
> 
> _2:46pm, two days ago:_ “Dean, please call me. I’m worried sick. I love you. Please...call.”
> 
> _6:24pm, two days ago:_ “Hello?”

Dean scrolls through some more one worded texts and stops at the last one.    

> _8:42am, today:_ “Ben thinks you’re dead. This is bullshit, Dean. You promised me. You promised.”

The back of Dean’s throat closes up with the first sentence.

Jesus fucking christ, he’s got no good excuses for any of this. He’s probably burned himself down a long list of them already, but there’s really nothing that he can say to get him out of one. If he was on a hunt, he would have called Lisa--would have told her before he left, it’s not like him to not say a goddamned word. And he promised, fucking promised, that if he got caught up with something, he’d always call.

But, it's been two days, and he’s been out of his mind--out of his body--and he can’t even remember what happened last night. So it’s safe to say, dialing a phone was probably off the table as well.

Instead he killed...whoever that was back there, the one that looked oddly like--his brain freezes around the same name again. Almost like it’s pandora’s box and if it’s spoken aloud, or even thought of, it’ll open into a black hole and swallow every fucking thing in sight. The back of his brain itches again and he has to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth for several seconds, before the urge to scratch his skull wide open, passes.

He leaves his cellphone in the glovebox, tries to leave the anxiety of his apple pie life in the car and he finds himself inside the diner. A sweet little blonde thing asks him how he likes his coffee and he answers black, thinking _like my soul_. And when he laughs, she smiles cutely and asks what’s funny, but he just shakes his head and tells her it’s nothing.

_Or is it?_ His brain questions.

The menu makes his stomach curl in on itself, so he asks for burnt toast, which is delivered on a small saucer and comes with a free top off of his coffee. He spends about an hour, pulling apart the toast and eating bits and pieces, while he begs his stomach to be kind to him and keep the food down.

He’s halfway through his second refill of coffee when a young man walks in and sits down at the counter a few stools away from him. Long frame--skinny at best, with shaggy brown hair and the sharpest cheekbones he’s ever seen since--his brain falters around the name. There’s something in Dean’s chest that unfurls like a sleeping flower, once caught in winter, but now touched by the kiss of spring. And he feels himself slide into a closet inside of himself, as his body moves two stools over and whispers something like ‘hello’ to his new friend.

The man looks over at him, his brows pulled in a way that tells Dean that he’s surprised by his demeanor. But when he speaks, it’s not mean and instead, it’s surprisingly kind. It has Dean’s cheeks rising with amusement.

“You from around here?” Dean asks, his fingers curling around the handle of his coffee mug.

The Stranger shakes his head and says, “Nah, I’m just passing through. What about you?”

“Same. Thought about finding a place to call it a day here in town.” Dean smiles.

“Oh, well, I’m staying up at this little place up the road. Maybe they have some rooms still?”

And it’s as good of an invitation as any. 

  

Dean’s hands curl around the familiar purple t-shirt and he tries to overlook the way his calloused fingers tremble around the fabric. He blinks his eyes a few times before he finds his voice and quips the fakest smile he can conjure up. “Uh, put this on.” He says matter-of-factly, like it’s the most normal of requests.

The Stranger, catches the purple shirt and holds it up in the dim motel light. He looks it over and his eyes pinch with something that looks like discomfort, but finally he chucks his own shirt and slides on the purple shirt. “How’s this?” He questions, his hands running over the fading dog on the front.

Dean feels something flare up in the back of his throat, feels his jaw tense as the man’s fingers trace across the front of the shirt. It feels like jealousy at first, but quickly becomes disgust. _How dare you put your fucking hands on that shirt_ , Dean thinks to himself, his fingers scrambling around the buckle of his belt. _How fucking dare you taint the fabric with your goddamned stink._ Dean points to the bed and tells the no good impostor to lie face down. _Gonna punish you for thinking you could get away with looking like--for touching his shirt, for not being--_ Dean’s brain, a sizzling plate of rambling, hysterical thoughts.

The man crawls onto the bed, looking back over his shoulder and his eyes look like coal in the barely there light of the nightstand. He’s naked from the waist down, his ass a porcelain masterpiece that taunts Dean and then there’s the purple shirt and his chest squeezes at the sight.

“Face down, don’t look at me.” Dean instructs, his voice deep and authoritative.

“You’re a kinky mother fucker, aren’t you?” The man laughs nervously, something like a smile carving across his cheeks and then he complies, his face down and his foreign eyes away.

Dean peels his shirt off, feels the familiar metal of the amulet fall across his chest and then he chucks his jeans off in one fluid motion. His dick stands at full mast and there’s a lust in his gut that begs like he’s a starved man, feels like he could fuck himself into China and it still wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the hollow ache between his hips, in his heart. “Keep your mouth shut, too.” He orders, his knees dipping into the mattress.

For a few minutes Dean lets his eyes roam over the back of the man’s body and then he pushes the man’s legs apart, pushing them as far as they will go. Dean climbs behind him and lets his cock rest on the crack of the man’s ass, lets his hips get a few cheap bucks in with just the barely there friction of the head of his dick gliding against cold flesh. And then he grabs ahold of the man’s asscheeks and he squeezes, fists them until they blush, until they’re warm to the touch.

The man moans beneath him and it punches Dean in the gut, the raw sound of need, the way the man’s body arches into his touch and _god_ if Dean didn’t know better he could almost believe it’s--his brain wrenches itself on the name and instead he spits on his index finger and shoves it into the man without much to do. The man chokes on a breathy moan, his shoulders tensing with visible discomfort, but Dean continues to fuck his finger in and out. He adds a second finger before he should, adds three and it’s a squeeze, but fuck his cock is dripping with the sheer intensity of his need to be inside.

Dean spreads the man open, exposes the sweet spot that his three fingers just vacated and he can’t resist it much more. He rolls a condom on and slathers himself up with lube, squeezing the bottle over the man’s puckering entrance and then Dean’s head is pushing itself needily inside. If he was going for a good fuck, he’d take his time, but there’s something ticking inside of Dean’s chest and there’s just not enough time to beat around the fucking bush.

“Oh,” The Stranger hisses, his legs shaking against Dean’s thighs. “Fuck--mmh…”

It takes Dean all of two pumps before he bottoms out inside of the man and when he gets there, he growls and grabs a fistful of the back of The Stranger’s hair. “Oh, god…” Dean pumps, one--two, three times. “So good for me, always so good-- _fuck_ …” Dean’s hips slap against the man’s ass, sounds like a rubberband as it echoes against four walls. The mattress wheezes beneath them and Dean closes his eyes and feels himself fuck furiously, chasing a memory that has become harder and harder to remember.

Behind closed eyes, Dean sees the body of a boy he used to know, one with fox eyes and shaggy brown hair and skin that felt like home against his. If he focuses hard enough on the memory, he can hear the boy as he moans his name-- ‘Dee--dean, fuck Dean--more, _I need more._ ’ And as he hears the voice, the static in his mind clears and the radio of his heart sings a song it's forgotten how to play. ‘Dean, Deaann, Dean-- _please_ , mmhm, please Dean.’

Dean fucks in time with his name, fucks as hard as his body will let him. Fucks and fucks and fucks, sweat pouring from his brow. He’s close, so close and as he gets closer the boy’s eyes look up into his, look him straight in the eyes and he mouths an ‘o’ as he clenches around Dean, and Dean is lightspeeds away from his body as he comes in long aching pumps--his entire body shuddering with every pulse of his cock.

“Sammy, ugh...Sammy, yesss.” Dean’s voice loud and uninhibited.

The man underneath him stills at the name coming out of Dean’s mouth, his body twisting with Dean still inside of him, just enough to make eye contact and break Dean from the memory he’s worked so hard to obtain. “What the _fuck_ man?”

Dean comes reeling back into his body, his mind slamming back into his head and he looks down at his fist in the purple dog t-shirt and up to the questioning eyes of the man he just fucked. “Shit, uhh-” Dean pulls out and lets the man scramble up the bed and away from him.

“What is this?” The guy hisses. “A sick game or somethin’?”

The back of Dean’s head hums loudly as the fog that surrounds the prior night starts to unzip. A sharp stab behind his eyes has him reaching up to hold his head, the feeling of it cracking has him slumped over and wheezing through pulled lips.

_The body of the man he killed, is beneath him and his skin is hot and alive and Dean is inside of him and pumping madly and out of control. His chest is on fire and the man under him hums and sighs with each pull and push of Dean’s hips. He can feel the coil in his stomach, the one that twists right before he’s about to reach release and the head of his cock sings like a bow against a violin string, every time it drags out and presses back in._

_Dean marvels over the man’s back, his fingers finding themselves dragging along the spine, searching for a scar that should be there, but isn’t and when he can’t find it, he fights the building hysteria in his throat by digging his nails into the man’s shoulders. He grabs fistfuls of the man’s long brown locks and tries to overlook the way his hair is coarse and everything that--his brain whines around the name, and he pulls the man’s head up, taking pleasure in his wincing groans._

_The man moans loudly as he clenches tightly around Dean, his hips fucking down into the mattress as he climaxes before Dean. And god, it feels like heaven to have all that heat grabbing at Dean’s aching cock like that. “Fuck,” he pulls out. “Fuck,’” he pushes in. And then it’s a litany of “fucks” as he charges his orgasm bold faced and ready, fucking so fast, that if he raised his arms, he might take flight._

_“Uh, uh, uh…” Dean moans in time with his hips and he’s so close, so fucking close--getting closer. He can almost touch that long ago dream, can almost feel the heat coming from that long ago boy he used to love, the one his brain refuses to mention--but his heart knows all too well. And as he gets closer, so close--the name is screaming in his head, is all around his throat and in his stomach, bubbling up inside of his mouth._

_And when he sails across the bridge of ecstasy, there it is, beautiful and haunting and everything that his heart will hollow itself inside out for, “Sam, Sammy--god, fuck, Sam…”_

_The man lurches from beneath Dean and squeals hysterically, “How the fuck do you know my name? I never told you my real name. I told you my name was Jack, not Sam. What the hell is this?”_

_Dean wakes from touching the long ago memory of the body his soul aches to feel and he’s staring down into the eyes of someone who thinks he’s Sam. But he’s not, Sam. Not his Sam._

_“You’re not Sam.” _

_The accusation falls out of Dean’s mouth and lands in the air like a bag of cement. The end of Sam’s name, sounding like a Holy name being spoken in church. And this man, this sad sack of flesh, has just taken it in vain._

_There is something that crawls up Dean’s spine, crawls his vertebrae knob after knob and attaches itself to the back of his skull and it has his eyes widening and his heart racing. And just when Dean can no longer breathe around the rage in his chest, the same ‘something’ crawls out of his mouth and takes hold of his hands, has him seeing red--has him reaching furiously for the impostor who thinks he could be Sam, his Sam. _

_The man yells, before Dean’s fingers wrap like hungry vines around his throat, squeezing the yell into a yip, sounding like a kicked dog. Dean squeezes and squeezes, watches as the man’s face purples and blues, watches as his eyes get wide, watches as his chest heaves with the breath that Dean denies him._

_And boy does the man fight, his body twisting and his hands clawing around Dean’s. His legs kick, his back arching up off the mattress, doing everything he can possibly imagine, just to get Dean off. But the more the man struggles, the more Dean’s unquenchable thirst for his last breath--grows._

_Dean takes the man to the edge of death, before producing the knife he always keeps on his nightstand. His fingers curl achingly around the butt and he watches as his arm slashes and stabs the impostor into the next life._

_“Not Sam.” Dean mutters, as his arm digs the knife into the man’s throat. “Not Sam.” Dean repeats, feeling the warm blood spill all over his hands and spray across his chest. The only thought besides what his mouth continues to say, is that he’s gonna cut the man’s voice right out--make sure he can never say Sam’s name ever the fuck again._

_“Fuck you,” Dean hisses when the man’s struggle finally gives out. “Fuck you for ever think you could be him.” His cheeks hollowing out as he finds saliva, his lips humming together as he spits onto the dead man’s face. _

_The man just stares back at Dean, his chest an open mine field that was warred upon. He lies in a tangle of sinned sheets, his life spilled around him like a gallon of milk that was shattered on the ground. And Dean just hovers there, marveling in his work, the crooked pieces of his heart clamoring back together as the red behind his eyes starts to dim._

_The same something that crawled up his back and out of his mouth, starts to retreat, starts to go back into whatever blackened cave it lives in, in Dean’s chest. His hands tremble when they’re his own again, the knife falling from his grip and the image of what he’s done starts to become clearer. And there’s a rolling tide of nausea that grips at his insides as the fume of a stolen life, finally hits his nose._

_Dean closes his eyes and feels his heart begin to speed up with no sight of slowing down. Feels his breath vacate his lungs, feels the world around him go blurry as panic fills his throat whole. The world around him goes black as the roaring sound of a loud engine marches straight for him and there’s parts of him that hope that whatever it is, will put an end to all of this._

_To all of his suffering._

_But the sounds just become louder, so loud that he can’t focus on anything else, not even his pitiful and desperate prayers._

The room sways as Dean comes back from his memories and he’s not sure how long he was out of it, but it must have been long enough for the guy he just fucked, to get the fuck out of there.

Dean scrunches up his eyes, the dim motel lamp light feeling like the goddamned sun against them. But he feels for the purple shirt on the bed and he balls it up into his hands and tries to breathe himself through the urge to claw his skin off. When he looks up, his eyes finally adjusting to the light, he scans the room and notices the knife on the nightstand. He moves to touch it and as he does, he catches his reflection in the the bathroom mirror across the room and immediately he stills. He looks, stares, and the more he focuses on his face, the more he’s sure he sees that ‘something’ inside of him smiling back with the most crooked and messed up grin he’s ever seen.

He forces himself to look away, but his black bird heart squawks inside of his chest and his vulture eyes focus on the backs of his traitor hands. And for the first time in a long time, he wonders if there’s anything of him that used to be--if there’s anything there that still deserves to be loved.

Especially by--his throat closes around the name.

“No.” He hisses. “No, he wouldn’t.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

Detroit, Michigan - 2010  
_(5 Years Ago)_

 

Life had never been easy, there were always things that Dean had sought after, things he wanted but could never obtain. And of course, there were days that he woke up and wondered what the fuck any of it all meant, if the good fight was even getting him anywhere, besides closer and closer to that six-foot hole in the ground.

Through the entirety of his memories, there’s more gore--more blood and violence, than there is of anything else good and valuable. He’s grown up in the trenches, known the heat of a gun more boldly than the heat of his mother’s kisses. And if he thinks back, it all looks bleak and meaningless, looks like a goddamned fucking tragedy--but there’s always been one thing, one constant that has kept him going.

_Sam_. Always Sam.

And Dean’s life must be a fucking comic, because god continues to laugh in his face. Continues to take the only things that keep him waking up in the morning, away from him. If it’s not demons, it’s angels, and now it’s the goddamned apocalypse. They’re on the losing wind of a battle that’s been hard fought, and there’s only one way to put an end to all of it and it sits in Dean’s stomach like a gallon of unlit gasoline.

It feels like giving up, letting Sam make this decision, feels like he’s going against every goddamned thing he’s been trained to do. But it’s Sam, Sam who wears the world on his back and looks at him in ways that he can’t fight--in ways that make him look sorrowfully back at his Brother and whisper, “Alright, if it’s what you want.”

An apple pie life sounded nice once, hell he’d dreamed about it half a dozen times. The luxury of waking in the same bed every day, the hope of a normal job (one that didn’t put him in Death’s hands constantly), the love of a good woman and a home he could could sow his roots into. But, that dream had long ago faded and now it's become Sam’s last wish, his last request--to make Dean promise things he doesn’t know he can keep.

“Dunno if I can do this, Sammy.” Dean whispers in the driver’s seat of the only real home either of them have ever known.

Sam looks at him in the darkness, the passing lights illuminating his expression every couple of seconds. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks--gently, as if he’s trying to silently lull that growing ache in Dean’s chest. And that’s just what it is, a giant sinkhole with a looming date, one that promises to eat everything that he gives a fuck about.

“I mean it,” Dean tries again, trying to somehow get Sam to change his mind. “I’m gonna go crazy doing nothing; gonna go insane knowing you’r--” His mouth falters around the knowledge of where Sam has signed himself up to go.

Long fingers find themselves around Dean’s, giving a squeeze of encouragement, giving the comfort that he’s not alone in this--at least not yet.

“It’s what I want.” Sam whispers back, softly--so soft, it’s as though if he says it much louder, it’ll crack the glass.

“I know, Sam.” Dean squeezes back, his body aching around his worrying heart. “Just tryin’ to wrap my head around it--that’s all.”

“You’ll be okay.” Sam hums back, their hands a vice grip between them.

Dean wants to argue, wants to slam on the breaks and scream about the thousands of ways that he’ll never be okay, not without Sam--never with Sam. But he catches the reassuring smile on his Brother’s face, and he swallows down the wailing hysteria in his chest. If this is what Sam wants, what Sam needs--he can lie a little to ease his Brother’s worries.

“Yea, Sammy.” Dean squeezes again, his thumb soothing strokes across Sam’s knuckles. “I’m gonna be _fine_. Just fine.”

They put up their boots for the night in a small town on the edge of Detroit. They check into some no name motel, it’s really nothing out of the ordinary when you look at the face value of it all. And they both keep up the ‘everything is normal’ charade as they settle in before they head off to dinner, both going about their routines pretending like tomorrow isn’t the day they’ve both dreaded for weeks.

Sam eats a burger at dinner, that’s the only difference really, but maybe it’s more about making Dean smile than the taste. Maybe he’s hoping that the fact his mouth is wound tightly around a greasy mess, Dean’ll spend less time thinking about the gallons of red that sit in the trunk of the impala.

Dean jabs his fries in Sam’s ketchup and he smiles around the rim of his beer when Sam gives him his tried and true bitch face.

“Dean!” Sam whines, before his eyes soften around the reminder of what waits for them in the morning.

Dean watches as Sam scoots his ketchup closer to him, the fries on his own plate suddenly looking like the grossest thing in the world. Sam doesn’t share his ketchup, he tells Dean to fuck off and go get his own, tells Dean he can keep his grubby hands out of his. Sam most definitely doesn’t push it closer to Dean, offering a pity cup of red in the wake of Dean’s smeared clean ketchup spot.

Dean chugs the rest of his beer and hopes it chases the blurry vision away. And when both his belly and his eyes burn, one with the abundance of booze and the other, with the fragile emotion in the back of his throat, the one that makes it harder and harder to swallow--he clears his throat and tries to shake it off. Pretends he’s fine, _just fine_ \--for Sammy’s sake, even orders another beer and pulls a teasing face at his Brother.

When they get back into the hotel, there’s a heavy weight in the air, one that clings to them like jelly and has them both worrying about things that don’t really matter. Things like, Sam dismantling his gun, putting it back together again, only to empty the bullets and take it back apart. Things like, Dean taking inventory of the gear they have and the things they need. They’re almost out of salt, so he writes it down on the motel pad and works his way down the list of other things they’ll need to shop for.

They go like this, for an hour, both of them in complete silence. Both of them keeping their hands busy, so they don’t have to listen to the worrying beat of their hearts, the ones that hammer under ribs and are pleading each other to listen. But it hurts to listen, it hurts to stop and think, hurts to imagine that tomorrow--things like this may very well never happen again.

Maybe after tomorrow, Sam’s gun will lie in the back of the impala--his prints a ghost around the grip. Maybe the list Dean made will lie crumpled up on the floor of the backseat. Maybe after tomorrow, they’ll never need those things again.

Because Sam made a choice and Dean made a promise.

Dean finishes his list and brings out the whiskey, lines up 4 plastic cups and fills them with the equivalent of a double shot. When he’s done, he places them on the table where Sam sits, his gun put back together again for the tenth time.

“Here,” Dean insists, catching Sam’s gaze. “Down the hatch.”

Sam’s lips move, like they itch with words he wants to say, but then he closes his eyes and smiles, his hand reaching for the first cup.

“As fast as you can…” Dean challenges, watches as Sam’s hands move swift and practiced.

The first one, Sam winces around the burn, but by the time he reaches the third--he’s smiling. The fourth one is up and down his throat at record speed and the cup comes smacking down on the table as Sam wipes his mouth with the back of his other hand. And if Dean listens closely, there’s the ghost of a laugh in the back of Sam’s throat and that, that is what Dean is hungry for.

Dean pours another round, is a little more forgiving with the amount in the third and fourth cups. When they’re full again, he puts the bottle down and pulls the cups towards himself. He stares for a moment at the amber liquid inside and hopes with everything inside of his body that it will numb the decaying thought of living a single solitary day without Sam. There’s an _amen_ in the back of his throat as his hand twists itself around the first cup and quickly moves to the second, the third and the fourth.

“Can’t beat the master,” Dean smiles, his lips still wet as he thanks the burning fire that finds itself home in his chest. “It was a good attempt, Sammy.” Dean offers a biting wink and moves to screw the cap back on the bottle.

“Fuck you, asshole!” Sam grabs for the bottle and chucks the cap back on the table. “Master!!? I’ll show you _master_ \--you cocksucking…” His words high with the disbelief at Dean’s previous words.

“Cocksucking...what?” Dean questions, a teasing smile etching itself across his warming cheeks.

“Cocksucking, _Princess_!” Sam’s voice is shrill, his chest wheezing on a laugh.

“You can call me a princess all you want, Sammy boy. Still can’t change the fact that I give the best head you’ve ever had.” Dean tilts his head and purses his lips. “‘Sides, I never hear you complainin’ when I’m on my knees for you.”

Sam swallows, a sheen of sweat appearing along his hairline. “Whatever..” He slurs on his already numb lips. And Dean huffs out a laugh in response, because of course he just checkmated the fuck out of his baby Brother.

Dean watches as Sam takes the series of four shots in rapid fire motion, taking them at record speed--killing his time hands down, but fuck he ain’t gonna let Sammy know that. Isn’t gonna let his pride go so easily, without a little fight.

Sam slams the last cup down and throws his hands in the air, his chest puffed out and a cocky, shit eating grin on his face. He’s not saying it, but Dean knows he wants to--wants to revel in his win, fair and square. But instead, again, they find themselves balancing their happiness on the point of desperation and sadness.

Dean gets half way through pouring himself another round when Sam’s hand finds its way on the back of his, stilling his pour and every organ in his body. Long fingers curl themselves around Dean’s wrist and fix their prints against his pulse point. And fuck if Dean’s heart isn’t racing, isn’t galloping right out of his fucking chest--because he’s been trying to avoid this moment all night.

These are the goodbye touches and everything inside of Dean hates the way they feel on his skin. It’s just the pressure of one hand, four fingers and a thumb--still, the noose they create feels like they could suck the life right out of his palm and leave him empty and carved out. But he lets the pressure remain, lets it burn against his skin and find a home there. He doesn’t shoo it away, despite the rise of bile in the back of his throat or the sickening twist in his stomach that screams, _this is it_ over and over again.

This is the last time, the last night, the last touch of his Brother’s hand around his wrist. The last, the last, the last. Dean finds himself mentally making a different list than the one he had made previously that night. And this one has his own grip slipping around the bottle, has an intractable pressure building behind his eyes.

Dean is a strong man, but this is something he won’t weather well. It’s gonna leave him bruised and bloody, gonna leave him broken and used. Yet, despite this knowledge, he still welcomes it. Still lets it come in like a stranger in the night. Lets it into the house of his heart, even though he knows it has a knife tucked behind its back. He even smiles as it walks in, because if he’s gonna die--at least it’ll be by the hands of the one he loves most in the world. If there’s any peace to be found, he wills himself to find it in that.

He finishes the two shots he did manage to pour, swallows them down like oxygen to the drowning and stands up to lead Sam over to his bed. Sam, whose fingers have moved from Dean’s wrist, to being tightly wound around his hand. And as they go, Dean can’t help but think about how this mirrors the entirety of their lives.

Dean leading and Sam following gently behind, like a shadow.

When they reach the bed, Dean turns Sam so his back is facing the bed and pushes him to sit on the edge. Sam reaches up with his free hand and wraps his fingers through Dean’s other hand and looks up to nail his eyes into the back of Dean’s skull. And Dean knows what Sam needs, the song of Sam’s wants have always been finely tuned inside of his heart.

Dean kneels before Sam, lets his knees find the cushion of the worn hotel carpet, lets his bones taste this position and revel in it and all of its glory as he prepares himself to give his all, his everything, to the only person in the world he could ever want to give it to.

_Sam_. Always Sam.

Sam’s fingers tremble as they loosen their grip on Dean’s, his body fighting the knowledge that he has to let go, in order for Dean to do the things he longs to feel. He takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and then he rips his fingers off of Dean’s hand like a bandaid. But he doesn’t have to go without them long, before Dean’s got one sweeping across the side of his face, carding his fingers through the right side of his hair, tucking it behind his ear and letting his thumb soothe small strokes against his cheek bone. It’s a delicate expression and Sam presses into the heat of his favorite calloused hand, welcoming it.

Dean moves to the hem of Sam’s t-shirt, lifts it effortlessly up and over his head and throws it on the floor behind him. Sam is beautiful in the low light, his skin a palace that Dean is King of. Every inch is a place he has touched, has cherished with his tongue, every corner a place he has kissed and bitten, marking it has _his_ for all to know. And even though he’s touched all of Sam, he still sits before Dean like some unknown territory that Dean longs to discover all over again. Forever seeking out the details, committing them to memory, pleading with his brain to never forget them.

Sam leans forward and chases Dean’s lips, breaking Dean completely from the spell his body had him in. And it’s not a hungry kiss, not the kind of after-hunt kisses where one of them got hurt and the other needs to reassure themselves that the other is okay. It’s not a desperate kiss, the kind they shared in the beginning, when things were still new and their bodies were still needing so much of the other--too many years spent craving for things they denied themselves. It’s not a needy kiss, their bodies an engine that churns lustfully together between them.

What it is, is a simple kiss. A press of the lips, soft and delicate, butterfly wings against their mouths. A drink of water for the thirsty, a break in the clouds on a rainy day. It’s hopeful in the midst of so many things that tell them it’s futile to even have it in the first place. It’s a _welcome home_ , _i’ve missed you_ kind of kiss. The kind that is unassuming in its press, but thankful in its taste.

_Thank you for existing, thank you for loving me, thank you-thank you-thank you._

And when Dean leans in closer, parting his lips and deepening the kiss with the press of his tongue against Sam’s lips, it remains the same kind of kiss. A type of kiss he could give forever, because with it comes a cocoon of warmth that settles in his stomach and relaxes his shoulders. With every move of their mouths, another layer of the armor he wears is chucked off and slowly he starts to feel like that twenty year old boy he used to be, the one naked before his Brother for the very first time. Naked and open in ways he never thought he could ever be with another person, much less someone so close to him.

Sam pulls Dean with him, as he leans backward, pulls him by the collar of his shirt until he’s on top of him. And when he’s got him exactly where he wants him, he’s gets his fingers under Dean’s shirt and is pulling it up and over his head, letting it drop on the bed beside them. Sam reaches for Dean’s chest, feels the heated skin there and lets his hands roam it, like they’re stallions running--wild and free. They travel down to Dean’s hip bones and around the back and find themselves up at the knotted bone at the bottom of his neck. He’s like the night sky, his freckles glowing in the low light of the bedside lamp and Sam closes his eyes and makes a wish on every single one that he can remember the placement of.

Dean watches as Sam lies under him, his eyes closed and his lashes like rolling waves as they reach away from the shore of his eyelids. He’s beautiful like this, Dean could never think another soul--another body, could ever be as glorious as the one that is warm beneath him. They fit together like jagged puzzle pieces, because they shouldn’t fit together, but somehow they do and it’s the most wonderful thing Dean has ever come to know, the miracle of his Brother’s body--long and hard against his own.

And when Sam’s eyes open, a grateful smile peels its way along his lips. His lion’s mane eyes, lighting up the room like the goddamned sun and Dean feels his breath catch in the back of his throat, feels himself utter out a half understandable _shit_ \--because it never gets old.

Sam blushes in response to his mumbled word and pulls Dean back down to meet his lips.

They lie like this for the longest time, just tracing patterns on each other’s skin. Dean making homes out of Sam’s moles and Sam making elaborate constellations out of Dean’s freckles. They leave tender kisses in the hollows of each other’s flesh, making sure not an inch of skin is left untouched. From chins, to collarbones, to shoulders, to the inside of their elbows, to the delicate flesh at their wrists, their hip bones, the backs of their knees and the long stretch of their throats. They fall into a wordless rhythm that is not about sex, not now, not tonight--not when they both have so much to lose. And slowly, they both find themselves naked and pressed against each other under the top sheet of the bed. Together they stare endlessly at each other, like they used to when they were kids, pretending that the world doesn’t exist beyond their small bed fort.

Dean presses his palm to Sam’s chest and waits to feel his heart knock on the other side of Sam’s chest. When he feels it, he closes his eyes and whispers, “Always have, always will.”

Sam mirrors him, “Always have, always will.”

And when sleep finally takes them, it’s with Dean’s lips against Sam’s forehead and Sam’s hands tangled helplessly in Dean’s--pulled under his chin and resting close to his heart.

The next morning comes early and starts like a normal day, with a hot shower and two cups of ‘it could be better’ motel coffee. Of course Dean takes his black and Sam adds three packs of sugar and two creamers, Dean tells Sam that he doesn’t know how he drinks it like that and Sam replies sarcastically, that it’s because he has taste buds-- _duh_. And when Sam brings back a newspaper for possible leads along with two donuts, Dean doesn’t say a thing. Instead he takes the paper out of Sam’s hands and reaches for the jelly filled donut, making every attempt he can to scoff at Sam’s plain one.

They sit at the same table they sat at the night before, and they talk about a possible lead a few towns over. It’s normal, eerily so--almost like their words haunt the air around them, because it’s a lot like playing house when you know everything is burning to the ground around you. And yet, both of them proceed, easy as pie--neither one mentioning a damned thing about Lucifer or that endless black hole in the ground.

Even when they’re thirty miles down the road, everything they own in the back of Baby, Sam still insists on having the window down and Dean still insists on blaring his loyal Metallica tape. Because, after all, it’s just another day in the life, just another road, another hunt, another body to salt and burn.

It’s not until hours later, when Dean pries the trunk open and eyes the gallons of menacing red--that the charade is up.

“Are you sure about this, Sammy?” It’s a whisper, a question that has rattled through Dean’s brain since the idea was even materialized. And before he looks up from the blood, he steals himself for the face that he knows Sam will have directed at him. The one where those kind eyes and that knowing look will be fixed and reassuring, right before Sam’ll lie straight to his face, knows he’ll do it because Dean did it once himself.

Sam looks inside the trunk, stares at the demon blood and swallows the knot in his throat. He looks Dean right in the eyes, no air of panic in his voice, “Yes.”

It’s one word, but it signs both of their fates in one breath.

Dean bites his bottom lip, trying to fight off the rambling string of excuses as to _why_ they should just get back in the car and drive as far away from this place as humanly possible. But instead, he breaks his eyes away from Sam’s and gives a small and agreeable nod. One that says, _I’m not gonna make this harder on you than it needs to be_.

Sam shifts nervously on the soles of his feet and then clears his throat, “You mind not watching me…” There’s an apology in his words, his eyes downcast and his lips twitching with the disgust of what he must do.

“Yea…” Dean coos. “That’s fine, Sammy. “

And when Dean walks away, there’s a raging sob that hollers in the back of his jaw and it makes the entirety of his lungs clamor with the need to let it out. But he doesn’t let it escape, no, he digs crescent moons into the palms of his hands--breaks skin and lets the swell of blood somehow soothe the tightness in his chest.

When Dean finds himself on Lisa’s doorstep two days later, he can barely feel his face--but forces a smile when she opens the door. He wants to tell her something about how she should shut the door and tell him to fuck off, but when she wraps her arms around him, the resolve to leave is squeezed away. And when he buries his face in the crook of her neck, he lets a broken sob escape, because her perfume smells foreign and nothing like what Sam smelled like.

She pulls him in, takes him to her room and tells him to lie down. She strokes his hair in soft, even measures and doesn’t ask him about the state he’s in. Instead she lets him curl into her lap, lets him cry till his lungs heave on wet wind and tells him quietly that _it’s alright, it’s gonna be okay_ \--tells him a thousand and two times.

Dean thinks of Mary then, thinks about how his Mother used to calm him when he hurt himself as a kid, or had a bad dream. And he can’t help but feel like that three year old all over again, back in the arms of his Mother, crying with the horrific pain he feels and yet, doesn’t know how to vocalize.

He begins to hum ‘Hey Jude’ between his hiccuped cries and continues until warm lips are pressed to his forehead and the darkness of sleep finally takes him.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Canton, Ohio  
_(now)_

 

Dean left Canton, Ohio at midnight and set route for Lisa’s automatically. It was a four hour drive, straight shot, but the closer he got the more he smoked. And the more he smoked, the more his bones rattled with the need to be somewhere else.

It’s 3am when he drives past the house he’s called _home_ for the last few years, but there’s nothing a welcome mat and a set of keys could give him to make him feel at ease. He stops three blocks away and pulls out his phone from the glovebox. He should feel guilty as the next set of unanswered calls, voicemails and texts stare him in the face--but he doesn’t feel a damned thing.

He pulls up a new text and lets his thumbs hover over the lit dial pad until he thinks of something to say, something that will probably not dig him out of the hole he’s found himself in, but will most likely only find him deeper in it. 

 

 

> _To: Lisa_
> 
> “Sorry for the radio silence….and for not answering my phone. I know I promised to always call and I’m sorry that I haven’t. I’m okay…. I’ll be home in a couple of days--I just need some more time. - D”
> 
> \------ _Sent_

It’s a dick move, but he’s done worse-- _especially_ in recent days.

Dean doesn’t let himself think too much about it, throws the phone back in the glovebox and closes it back up. He puts the car into drive and gas’ the engine back to life, guns himself out of town--doing ninety down a thirty-five mph marked road.

And he knows that Lisa is apt to hear him, knows she probably turned on her bedside lamp at the knowing roar of his car and thought maybe he’d come home finally. Only to find the meaningless text message he finally cared to send after half a week of silence. She’s a good woman, she’s been nothing but accepting of him and all the dark baggage that he totes around. In the back of Dean’s mind, he knows she doesn’t deserve this-- _him_ , and maybe that’s why his instincts are telling him to drive ten hours more.

Because after all, that’s where dead men are supposed to go-- _into graves._

When he pulls onto the familiar dirt road, his fingers are aching for one thing and one thing only. And no, it’s not the butt of a cigarette or a good shave, it’s for the shovel in the backseat and for the patch of dirt at the foot of a big boulder. It isn’t the first time he’s visited the place, but its been a long time just the same. Too long, now that he’s there and feels the cool air crisp against his cheeks.

Dean looks up at the arch and reads the familiar letters, says the name as he looks at it, “Stull Cemetery”.

His feet crunch the brittle grass as he makes his way to the place he’s come to know like the back of his hand. He looks at the bare field, the one that once came to life, opening up and growing claws--ones that wound their way around Sam’s throat and dragged him to the farthest depths of the earth. But now, just like minutes after it happened, it looks like nothing has touched the dirt there for years--maybe even lifetimes.

Dean finds the boulder with the carved ‘S.W.’ in it and kneels before it, his hand reaching forward to brush the dirt off of his Brother’s barely there initials. They’re not noticeable if you don’t know they’re there, but Dean’s hands still ache from taking the blade of his pocket knife and digging the letters adamantly into the stone. He traces the letters, feels their quiet indents and feels a familiar pull in his chest--one he’s learned to keep tied up and held hostage in the back of his mind.

A few seconds later, he’s slamming the blade of the shovel into the dirt, pressing it deep with his eager shoulders. The afternoon sun is peeking out through the clouds, it warms the back of his neck as he works, and he welcomes it in the contrast of the cool air. He works up a sweat, his arms straining with every pile of dirt he digs up and the more he shovels--the more his stomach claws at his ribs.

It takes him about twenty minutes to hit the top of the box he knew would be there and another ten to dig it out completely. And when his fingers are pulling it back up from the earth, there’s a wet laugh that leaves his mouth. Because there it is, after all this time--just as he left it, just as untouched as the last time he buried it. There’s relief in his throat, a ribbon of panic coming undone as he palms the top if it, brushing off the dirt. He knows it’s stupid to be so worried about it, worried that he’ll start digging one day and never find it again. Stupid, because he’s the only one who knows it’s there.

The only one who cares.

He opens the flaps of the box and finds the bag inside, still knotted, just as he had left it a few years ago. The plastic knot is tight, but nothing his vulture-like fingers can’t get into in record time. And when it’s loose and his hands can finally get into where they want to be, he feels the backs of his eyes ache with the pain of what he knows is in there--

His old life.

The smell hits his nose first, fills his lungs and warms the hollow halls of his soul. It smells like a place he’s lived all his life, an old skin he used to wear--one still stained with all the gore and sweat and laughter that it saw him through. His fingers wind themselves around the shoulders of it and pull it up into the daylight, his hands gripping it tighter as his eyes roam the length it. And when he traces the collar, his blood runs cold--his mind forced through a black hole he likes to hide from, as he remembers the day he took it off for good.

_Dean’s felt Sam’s knuckles a billion times, knows their sharp curve-like mountains, ones that sit on the ridge of Sam’s hands--like the back of his own hand. They have left him dizzy, left him breathless, left him wanting more, left him always with a puddle of lust in his gut._

_He’s worn their trophy marks a time or two (more than that, if he’s to be honest). He’s licked blood, their blood, from them. Has kissed them better and has dragged the roughness of them against his own cheek. They’re powerful machine guns, built into the hands of the boy who refused to kill a fly when he was still chubby cheeked and innocent._

_But now those gnarled-toothed teeth are clawing into Dean’s face at record speed. One hit, two, three hits, four. And through it all, through the sting and exploding fireworks, through the blurry vision and the hot taste of iron--all he can think about, is his Brother--_

_“Sammy.” Dean’s sore jaw mumbles out._

_There’s a crazy look that carves its way across Sam’s features and the blows continue, his knuckle crowns carving themselves deep into Dean’s cheeks. His eyes are already swollen, his jaw dislocated and he can barely breath through the nose that sings violently like a broken string. There’s nothing but pain and sorrow that paints him whole._

_And just when he’s prepared himself to die at Sam’s hand, his Brother’s fist, which is raised like an impossible wrecking ball--ready to destroy everything left in its path, the most remarkable thing happens._

_Sam Winchester, his snot nosed little Brother--the one who sulked in the passenger seat when he was a teenager, every time Dean called him Sammy. The one whom the demons of this world tried manipulating into a destiny that he was foretold to live. The boy who grew up in the impossible shadow of this world, who carried the weight of it on his back, who made mistakes and vowed to make amends for them--does the one thing no one could have ever imagined--_

_He overcomes The Devil._

_Sam’s golden orbed eyes, yellow petals floating on a river, clear of the rage they’d been drowning in and his fist softens, a mountain range smoothing into hills. It’s a subtle motion, delicate and almost amiss if you’re not paying attention, but one that must take every single ounce of strength Sam can muster._

_Dean’s lungs wheeze on a triumphant sob, for the hero of a Brother, the one that stands before him with this look written across his face, that speaks of things that only Dean can understand._

_It’s a wordless goodbye, a small smile and a nod. Open arms, angel-like and mighty, Sam ready to take flight, to fall into a place the most spineless of monsters would be terrified to go. But in his last moments, he does not look afraid--he looks peaceful._

_And brave. Infinitely so._

_After Sam’s gone, the ground closed behind him, Dean is left with nothing. Nothing but a life littered with pain and violence, void of everything he once used to care about. The startling realization of being alone, truly so--pools in his stomach and weighs him down. And in its heaviness, it also feels as empty as the world around him._

_He spends hours there, sitting, staring, crying--homesick all the while. His mouth spews profanities in the wind, to a god that better not exist if he know what’s good for him. Because what kind of god would let his Brother sign up for this kind of cruel fate? What kind of god, would sit idly by and let the purest of souls make that kind of epic swan dive, into the darkest depths of Hell?_

_Not one that Dean would ever like to meet, that’s for sure._

_Somewhere in the blur of it all, he takes his trusty leather jacket off and folds it neatly--careful to not disturb the dried blood on the collar. His Brother’s blood, the only proof that he existed at all. A single solitary sign that this all happened in the first place. And as sick and twisted as it might sound, the dusting of darkening red, makes the dull ache in Dean’s ribs, calm a bit. Because it makes everything real--_

_Sam’s sacrifice, Dean’s life (his old one anyway)--the one he’s gonna bury in the dirt and leave behind--like a snake shedding a skin._

_He presses the collar to his lips, waits to feel the warmth of his Brother’s life, but nothing comes except for the hot sting of tears behind his eyes. And when it’s folded, bagged and boxed up, there’s no one around to see him shovel the dirt over it, to see him sob as he does it. Maybe this is what it’s like to become a ghost, to become a shadow of who you used to be. He’s only burying his jacket (and metaphorically, his Brother), but it feels like his soul and his hands tremble with every lift of the shovel._

_You promised_. He thinks, over and over again.

_And despite the burning need to throw the shovel down, to put the jacket back on, to dig himself down to the darkest pits of Hell, to find a time machine and go back into time and tell his Brother ‘no’, to tell him that even a second without him is unbearable enough--not even to fathom the rest of his life. But it’s all stone walled by a single promise he made, to live an apple pie life--to be happy, to die old._

_Sam made his sacrifice and now he’s got to make his own. And he’ll do it, do all of it, because it’s what his Brother wanted for him--because it was his last wish, his last want out of a life that betrayed him so._

_Dean finishes, pats the last of the loose dirt with the bottom of his shoe and stands there, his knuckles aching with the grief of being around the shovel for hours. But even as they whine, the stabbing of his heart is a knife blade against his throat. He leans down on his haunches and pulls out the knife in his back pocket, takes the sharp point and digs it several times, etching out the shallow initials of his Brother’s name. It’s not much, not deep enough, not bold enough--but it is clear in Dean’s eyes and that’s all that matters._

_When Dean’s back in the car, the night sky is ebbing near midnight and the nausea of worry and mourning is crashing against every bone in his body. He drives away, slowly, watching the cemetery fade in the rearview mirror and feels the burn of his lungs as they ache with the thousands of grief stricken sobs he’s held back. His fingers wrap around the steering wheel and he tries desperately to keep his eyes on the road, to keep his focus on the white lines passing in the dark of night, tries with every ounce of strength he somehow has left to not notice the gaping vortex of space that haunts the seat beside him. He’s white knuckling it, his hands wanting desperately to search the cracked leather and feel for Sam’s knee, for the heat that has always been there--that should still be there now._

_Dean stops three miles down the road, finds himself in a Gas & Sip parking lot and he can’t put the car into park fast enough, before he’s out of the car and clamoring for the curb. There’s no oxygen in his lungs, his heart is racing, and there’s tears hammering down his cheeks. It’s too much, too fucking much and Dean finds himself within the grips of a hurricane-esque panic attack, the world spinning madly out of control beneath his body. _

_Somewhere towards the end of the panic, his eyes are rimmed red and his face is ghostly white. And before he knows it, he’s inside and buying the one thing he swore he never would--_

_Cigarettes._

_He finds himself leaning against the hood of his car, lighting up a Marlboro Red and puffing it to life, inhaling the toxins and breathing a true sigh of relief at the burn he feels._

_He finishes half the pack before he gets back behind the wheel of his car, his lungs a chimney and his mind humming with nicotine. And he’s got another cig between his lips before he drives a quarter mile down the road, his fingers anchoring around the butt and his chest chasing the suffocation that eases the swelling homesickness in his ribs. He’s ten miles down the road and he’s laughing maniacally, because ain’t it like him to trade one bad habit for another._

_Brother codependency meet nicotine codependency._

Dean shoves his arms through the worn leather, lets it sit on his shoulders and feels the weight of it secure him to the earth below him. It feels like he’s been in the clouds for too long, losing reality, but with the cloak of his old life upon him--he feels truly centered for the first time in days.

He digs out the pack of Marlboro Menthols from his back pocket and brings one of the death inducing sticks to his lips. Over the years he’s smoked all different kinds of things, but he found that he especially liked the burn of menthol in his lungs. Found that it settled in the nooks and crannies of his throat and put the anxiety of life without Sam, to rest--even if only momentarily.

The cigarette is lit and hanging from the corner of his mouth as he makes his way out to the field where his Brother last stood. Finds himself right in the center of it and lies down on his back, the familiar leather cushioning him as he stares out into the bright blue sky above him, inhaling deep on his cigarette, before removing it with his left hand.

The thought of Sam becomes crystal clear, as clear as he seldom allows it to be. Dean closes his eyes and chases after the image of Sam, but his heart lurches when the details are hazy. Somewhere in the fog is shaggy brown hair, a smile that could be pinned into the sky and shine like a fucking constellation of stars, and the deepest dimples that Dean’s ever seen. Dean chases after the color of Sam’s eyes, longs to see them as he saw them that last morning, but they’re just hazel in his memory. And then he longs for the feel of Sam’s hands on his face, the warmth and somehow never calloused pads of his Brother’s fingers on his skin. But it's been so long, that they feel like a ghosting of touches against his skin. Dean can remember the action of it, but not the feeling.

Dean pulls on his cigarette again, pulls in deep and holds his breath as long as his body will permit him to. Holds it until his eyes water, till his stomach hurts and his lungs throb with the fire of menthol. And when he lets it out, it feels like he’s been gut punched, feels like it takes everything in him that might still be good, with it.

He laughs, cynically, and puts the cigarette out on the palm of his other hand. Because, what a joke, what a goddamned mother fucking joke.

There isn’t anything _good_ about him anymore.

Dean thinks about the last few days, thinks about how he’s killed a man in a blind rage, thinks about how he almost fucked another dude less than twenty-four hours afterwards. Thinks about how one body didn’t even go cold, before he was burying himself into another. And that’s really fucked up, he knows it.

Then there’s the whole issue with Lisa, with abandoning her and Ben for days on end with little to no explanation. He’s been making one mistake after another, has been spiraling out of control, so much so--that he doesn’t even remember parts of the last few days. Almost like his brain turned off and his body just reacted, just took over and did what it's been needing to do.

More than that, there’s that ‘something’ in his eyes that grows with every fucking day that passes, something dark and evil, something twisted and skewed. It used to be a pin prick and now it’s as big as saucers. It’s so big, so vicious and so hungry, that Dean has a hard time reigning it in anymore. It’s almost like, the more he tries to stuff it down and try to shut it up, the more it screams and tries to claw its way out.

Dean shuffles out another cigarette, lighting it smoothly with his trusty zippo. He pulls in on it, and thinks again of his Brother. Thinks about how Sam would look at him, knowing all that he has done. Wonders if Sam’d look at his hands and be able to see the blood staining them, wonders if he’d be able to see the monster inside of him that howls in the silences of his pulse. Maybe Sam wouldn’t even recognize him, and well, who could really blame him--Dean has trouble recalling his own reflection most days.

He lies there for another hour and actually falls asleep for at least half of it, the lit cigarette still in his hand and the jacket still wrapped around him like a security blanket. It feels like a breath passes, before he jolts awake with the first drops of rain pelting his face, Dean opening his eyes and squinting up into the menacing clouds and wondering where the hell they came from.

“Fuck..” He hisses as he lunges to his feet, sticking the half damp and burned out cigarette into his mouth. The filter is wet and gross and tastes like a wet sock in his mouth, so he spits it out and it lands on the ground as he runs for the car, for cover--to protect the jacket and its memories.

“Jesus!” Dean barks, his fingers clawing the impala door close behind him.

It’s raining madly around him and he looks at the open box and dug up hole and feels something pull in his ribs. He looks up at the clouds, black and violent, feels the pound of the rain on the roof the car and thinks it’s strangely ominous. Thinks of Sam, in the pits of this earth, shedding tears over what he’s become.

“I’m sorry,” Dean whispers to himself, to Sam. “Sammy, I’m--” But he cuts himself off, because the words are no use. Sam can’t hear them and it doesn’t clear the closet of horrors behind him (and inside of him).

Instead he shoves his key into the ignition and fires the impala back to life. The leather moans around him as he moves to switch the engine into reverse, his foot gunning the car back, peeling off the dirt road. And when he turns her around, he’s flying like a bat out of hell down the road.

Everything in him trying to outrun the calamity of Sam’s disappointment against the windshield.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Battle Creek, Michigan - 2014  
_(1 year ago)_  

 

The apple pie life consists of all things routine.

There’s the five o’clock in the morning coffee, a five-thirty shower, and then Dean’s waking Ben up and helping Lisa with breakfast by six. He is ready and out the door no later than seven, climbing into his pickup, a cigarette hanging from his lips and heading off to his very normal ‘nine-to-five’ job, in construction.

Every second of Dean’s day is completely counted and performed around the ticks of the clock.

So when the boys ask him out for beers post shift, Dean looks at his watch and nods in agreement, because they’re right on time. They head to the bar around the block from his apple pie house, and there’s a two beer max that they all allow themselves, so they can all still drive home. Dean laughs, plays his part, talks about taxes and some bullshit article that was written up in the local newspaper. And they all take Dean’s chameleon smile for face value, even though half the time he’s dying inside.

He pulls up into the driveway around seven at night and is eating dinner by seven thirty. There’s an hour for TV with Lisa and Ben, and then by nine it’s time to get everyone ready for bed. Dean’s always the last one upstairs, his ritual of checking windows, doors, making sure the security alarm is set and the lights are all turned off. It's been four years and he’s still looking over his shoulder, always preparing for some ugly nightmare from his past to somehow find him.

It’s ten when he’s finally under the covers and then he’s quietly waiting for Lisa to fall asleep. He counts her breaths, there’s usually thirty or so before she goes and he can always tell because of the light snore she has. When she’s asleep, safe in his arms, Dean closes his own eyes and counts back from one-hundred, desperate for his mind to be blank and for sleep to take him. Because if he doesn’t count, doesn’t stick to the routine, if anything falls out of line, he’s gonna have space to think about the one thing he has prohibited himself from doing so--his Brother.

And nights are always the worse times, the ones where his mind starts to itch around that box of memories that are now scabbed over and scarring in the back of his mind. It’d be easy to pick at them, to pull the edges up on one of the scabs, let it burn and remind him of what it was like back when he always had the tinge of death on his hands.

There’s nothing that is stopping him from thinking about his old life, when eleven is staring at him from the bedside alarm clock. But that’s why he’s learned to count, it’s just enough to busy his brain, to get him over the bridge into Nothing Land. And if he’s lucky, when he gets there, it’s dreamless.

The first few years after Sam fell, were full of dreams-- _nightmares_ , more-like. Dreams as vivid as his own memories of Hell. Except, maybe Sam’s on the rack and he’s staring up at him, begging him to stop--but Dean cuts into him anyway. Slices until he can taste the blood on his teeth, his smile reflected in the lifeless ones of his Brother. And he’d always wake up with vomit in the back of his throat, and the need to smoke himself through half a pack of cigarettes.

Luckily for Dean though, the last year has had more dreamless nights than the first three years. And he doesn’t know if he should be thankful or worried. Thankful, because his tired bones are starved for eternities of sleep. Or worried, because even when he does dream of Sam, the picture of him is faded and less and less detailed every time he has them.

But he clings to his routine, smokes himself calm and tries not to think too much about it. Instead, thinks about how the front lawn needs to be mowed again on Saturday or how the truck needs to be washed soon. He tries to think about the BBQ with the neighbors on Sunday, tries to think about the marinade for his steaks and thinks about what ingredients he needs to pick up at the store. He tries not to laugh around his bites full of Lisa’s homemade apple pie that sometimes accompanies dinner, a dessert he no longer cares much for, because there’s a just a little too much apple pie in his life.

And his stomach is sick of it, his heart too homesick for things he cannot have.

It’s two weeks before May 2nd, four years after Sam fell, that things begin to spiral out of control.

Dean is walking in the door, at seven exactly, and his body hurts from a long, hard day on the job site. The smell of spaghetti is filling the air, followed by the warm aroma of garlic bread. Dean’s stomach howls with want, the two beers he drank at the bar swishing around aimlessly.

“Hey..” He says, pressing a kiss to the top of Lisa’s head as she stirs the sauce.

“Hi there,” She smiles up at him and then offers him a taste of the sauce. “What’d ya think?”

Dean licks it eagerly and nods, “Mm, it’s perfect.”

“Go get cleaned up, it’s almost done.” Lisa rubs his forearm affectionately and returns her attention back to the stove.

“Yes, ma’am..” Dean winks, flirting. He presses a kiss to her cheek and then heads upstairs, his back screaming for the solid water pressure from his showerhead.

He’s passing by Ben’s door when he hears shuffling, followed by the door closing quickly. Dean smiles, because, he was a teenage boy himself once and he doesn’t have to think too much about what would have caused Ben to shut the door in a hurry. Dean’s chuckling to himself as he sheds his dirty and sweat soaked clothes.

It doesn’t take him long to shower, barely five minutes pass and he’s clean and fully dressed, walking back down the hall. It’s five minutes till seven-thirty and it’s almost time for dinner, so Dean knocks on Ben’s door.

“Hey, dinner!”

There’s some movement behind the door and then the door is opening, Ben looks up at Dean with a smile. “Smells good.”

Dean ruffles Ben’s hair, pulls him into a half hug. “Yea, yea it does. Your Mom is a hell of a cook. Let’s go eat, I’m starved!”

Ben laughs in agreement. “Yea, me too.”

By eight, Dean’s leaning back in his chair and patting his food-baby belly. “God that was good, thanks for Dinner, Li…” Dean smiles warmly at the woman who has somehow kept him sane through these past years. And he feels a pull in his heart as she blushes, because, yea, he does love her. At least as much as his heart will allow him to.

“You can thank me by cleaning up!” She winks, giving back just as much as Dean gives her. And Dean can’t help but laugh.

“Deal.”

Dean grabs Lisa’s plate and points to Ben’s. “You wanna wash or dry?”

“Dry!” Ben shouts, his body is up and out of the chair with his plate. Knows if he doesn’t get to the sink first, Dean’ll make him do the dirty work and wash.

It’s quiet as Dean washes the red smeared sauce down the drain, soaping the plates up and rinsing them off, handing them over to Ben, who waits eagerly with his dish towel. Ben smiles as he dries the plates, stacking them carefully on the counter, waiting for there to be three to the pile before he can put them back in the cupboard. And when Dean’s finished with the last of the utensils, he flicks his wet hands at Ben and laughs when Ben’s brows furrow with pretend annoyance. They both break into laughter when Ben whips the towel at Dean and for a few seconds Dean can almost believe that he is somehow happy.

_Almost._

It’s eight-thirty and Ben’s coming back down the stairs, his pajamas on and there’s something around his neck that shines in the darkness, by the light of the TV. Dean doesn’t think much of it, watches as Ben comes into the living room and makes his way past Lisa and him, to the recliner next to the couch. But it’s as Ben passes Dean, that Dean’s entire body stalls on itself. His brain, his heart, his lungs, every goddamned organ and blood pumping vein in his body, all come to a screeching and halting--stop.

Dean’s neck feels like stone as he jerks it to look at the glimmering thing laying against Ben’s chest and as his eyes focus on it, there’s something in the darkest corners of his brain that comes alive and screams. It has him flying up off the couch and rounding around to face Ben, pulling him out of the chair by the collar of his shirt and pushing him aggressively into the wall.

His fingers tangle around the black cord as he pulls, just enough to leave a burning mark against the back of Ben’s neck, but not enough to break it. “Where…” Dean seethes out the word, his chest a pandora’s box of anger.

Ben looks up at him, his bottom lip quivering. “I-I, uh, I was looking around in the garage and--”

“How..many times… have I told you… NOT to touch that car?” Dean pulls Ben towards him and shoves him back against the wall. “How many times?!?” Dean yells loudly.

Lisa’s hands are around Dean’s arms, pulling, but he shakes her off.

“I’m sor..ry.” There’s tears in Ben’s eyes and it only fuels Dean’s rage.

“You’re sorry?” Dean screams. “Take this…” Dean pulls hard on the necklace again, making it perfectly, unarguably clear, what he is talking about. “Off!!”

Dean lets go of Ben and is tugging the necklace up and harshly off of Ben’s body. “Nobody gets to, nobody gets to wear this except...except…” Dean is shouting and Lisa is telling him to calm down, to relax, to breathe.

But he can’t do any of those things, because there’s the familiar metal he had worn for so much of his life, the one he took off so many years ago and threw away and now, _somehow_ , it’s there--it’s there and Dean just wants to know how, how is it there--how was Ben able to find it when Dean’s been through every inch of that car? 

Dean forces air through his nose, fights the rising war of hysteria in the back of his throat, just enough to ask the one question he needs to ask.

“Where...where was it?” His voice is quiet, his thumb tracing the golden face.

Ben is holding his arm and looking at Dean like he’s the very thing that kids think is hiding under their beds, and in their closets. And Dean would feel sorry, if his apple pie life didn’t just go up in flames around one of the most important objects in his life.

“It, it was in a backpack in the trunk.” Ben answers, just as quietly. “I’m sorry I went in there, Dean, sorry I took that--I just thought it was cool, wanted to be just like..just like-- _you_.” He follows, trying to explain how it ended up around his neck.

Dean turns and heads for the garage, his fist wound tightly around the necklace in his hands. He walks past Lisa’s disturbed stare, keeps walking when she’s comforting Ben behind him. Even lets the garage door slam behind him when she yells his name, saying something about how he needs to apologize for his outburst--for scaring Ben (and her).

It’s nine o’clock and they should be halfway through another episode of The King of Queens. But no, instead Dean is standing in the garage, facing the car that holds too many memories, ones that hurt just by seeing her silhouette under the tan sheet. It’s nine o’clock and Dean feels the expanse of his ribs tightening with his broken lock-box of a heart, pounding against his spine.

His fingers tremble as he yanks the car cover off of the black beauty, which is still shiny and perfect, even after hardly being used in recent years. When the trunk is exposed, he grabs the keys from the hook on the wall and opens her up. Everything is as he had left it, there’s even the empty bottles of demon blood, which he just couldn’t bring himself to throw away after Sam fell. And to the right, is Sam’s old duffle bag, his backpack and his laptop.

It’s not much, but it’s what Sam left behind.

Dean never touched Sam’s things really, it felt like a violation of Sam’s privacy. His fingers had traced the zippers a few times, even found himself unzipping the duffle bag a couple of times, just long enough to let the smell of Sam, out. But it was too unbearable, because every single thing made the pit of his stomach curl in on itself. The gravitational pull of the millions of ways he missed his Brother, could all be traced back to the trunk of his car. And to have let those things out, to have let his eyes fall on the things that Sam cared about most, it would have made him truly and deeply incapacitated with a type of grief, for which there is no name.

Even now, as he pulls the worn backpack out of the car, there’s a tiny voice in the back of his head that tells him that it’s a very bad idea. But he tells that voice to mind its own fucking business, his fist tightening around the amulet with resolution.

Inside, there’s a couple of shirts and some books. Dean feels the fabric of the clothes and swallows down the sharp throb in his throat. He pulls out the books and sees they’re old textbooks, most likely from Sam’s time at Stanford. Dean flips through the pages of a heavy Philosophy book and then tosses it aside absentmindedly, his attention returning to the inside of the bag.

Dean finds two hardcover books at the bottom of the bag and fishes them out. One reads, ‘The Call of The Wild’ and Dean finds his lips curling up at the memory of a twelve year old Sam curled up against the passenger car door reading it from cover to cover. And the second is, ‘Les Misérables’. Dean feels his chest squeeze as he takes in the cover of this book, because he knows it was Sam’s favorite. Knows Sam had read it countless times, knows that he gave Sam tons of shit for it too, but it never stopped Sam from pulling it out from time to time and starting it all over again.

Without much thought, Dean opens the book and lets the smell of old pages fill his nose. His fingers begin carding through the pages and he finds himself flipping through half a dozen dog-earred pages. Pages that obviously meant something to Sam. And there’s a few places that he finds pen marks, circled sentences and underlined words. Dean finds himself tracing the indents of the pen marks, and stops himself when he comes to a highlighted chunk of text.

_‘Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.’_

Dean feels his chest still, feels his fingers shake as they run over the words on the page. The ones Sam highlighted and marveled over. The ones that speak to Dean now, his eyes moving over ‘destroys’ and ‘saves’, ‘light’ and ‘night’. His heart flutters in his throat and he feels the starved off tears start to well in his ribs, because what a night he has found himself in. What a black, abysmal and soul eating night his life has become.

His homesick heart shivers in his ribs as he thinks about how his Brother saved the world. But what good is it, when the light you so desperately love is burned out? There’s nothing _saved_ about his calloused hands and his betty crocker apple pie kind of life. He is the farthest thing from saved.

He is destroyed.

And the amulet burns in his hand, cementing that thought. An old reminder of just how bright that light he used to love, actually was.

The tears come, strong and fierce, hollow and starved. They crawl up his throat and wail against his copper freckled cheeks. The severity of them, has him gasping for oxygen; it’s like his lungs have never known the sweetness of air. And the only thing on his mind, is Sam. Sam and the weighted and horrible absence of him by his side ( _in his arms, against his lips_ ).

The pain is bolded, italicized in a two-hundred point font in his chest. It has him falling to his knees, the book dropping from his hands and onto the garage floor. He watches it as it tumbles from his grip, as if in slow motion. Watches as it spins and the pages fan, watches as it exposes a hidden compartment cut into the pages at the back of the book. Watches as it lands by his knees, open for him to see it with glaring clarity.

Dean breathes out roughly, half startled by it. He reaches for the book instinctively, and then stops, wiping his eyes clear with the back of his hands. And even with the tears temporarily gone, he can still see the small cut in the pages, can still see the space Sam had cut with the blade of what was probably his pocket knife.

He picks it up gently, as though the book will break if he holds it wrong and he examines the rectangular cut Sam had made. It’s not big, but it was cut meticulously, the edges smooth and equal in measure. Dean looks at the bottom, sees yellow highlighted words, the frame of the cut, perfectly around them.

_‘Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it._ ’

Dean stares at the words, lets them bore into his eyes and feels the necklace in his hand burn loudly and with truth. He sees the loose tape, one end up at the bottom and it’s then that he knows where Sam had stowed the necklace all these years, keeping it hidden in a place as safe as the books he had loved to read. He lifts his hand, lets the amulet dangle above the space Sam had cut and lets it go, watching as it fills the space perfectly.

Dean closes his eyes, pinches them tight, and thinks about how many times he’s seen Sam buried nose deep into this book. How many times had he given him hell for reading it again, flicking the back of it as Sam read--just to be annoying. How many times had this book been in his presence, Sam holding it tight, because it kept the amulet hidden and safe? How many nights did he shove the book under his pillow, his thumb still folded into the pages? And the entire time, Dean was oblivious to the secret that Sam kept inside of it.

Guilt flares in Dean’s stomach and it’s followed with the twist of bile up his throat. There’s something that overrides his own pain, something sharp and raw and it has him scrambling to his feet, but failing--his mouth opening to spew vomit all over the floor beside him. It tastes acidic and like spaghetti sauce, it burns his nose and throat and leaves him just as hollow as him throwing the amulet away had made Sam.

Sam who fell into the depths of this earth, knowing he had kept it, never thinking Dean would want it back. Sam who kept the necklace all that time, silently holding onto it, carrying that pain with him every day, remembering the day Dean took it off and threw it away. Sam, who undoubtedly, reflected that action unto himself over and over again, convincing himself Dean had meant it--that he never regretted it for a day.

“You were wrong, Sammy.” Dean whispers into the silent garage, knowing it doesn’t mean much, but needing to say the words out loud just the same.

Dean’s fingers tremble as he places the amulet back over his head, his chest burning with the weight of it against his heart. And as he gets reaquainted with the necklace that he wore for most of his life, he knows deep in his gut, that whatever life he had thought he had in the house around him--is over. Because there’s no room in his ribs for the lies he tells himself every day; he’s been living numb and for the first time in years, he feels alive--even if that means half of him is still dead.

He collects Sam’s things and stuffs them back into the old backpack, thinks about leaving them in the trunk where they’ve been for the past few years and then thinks against it. He grabs one of the straps and heaves it out and then closes the trunk, only to make his way to the passenger side door. Dean puts the backpack on the seat where Sam used to sit and pats it securely, as though he’s afraid it’ll disappear.

The road is calling him, he needs it more than he’s needed it in years and that need is bigger than the promises he’s made, bigger than whatever confusion lies on the other side of that garage door. It’s a wolf howl in the back of his throat, and the open road is the full moon that has been denied to him for longer than he likes to think about.

Dean opens the door back into the house, his feet set on the upstairs bedroom with his things, but is instead instantly confronted by Lisa’s fury.

“What the hell, Dean?” Her eyes are wide and angry.

Dean looks around the room and notices how the TV is off and how Ben is absent. Knows that he was most likely sent back up to his room with a kiss on the forehead and an apology from the same lips that now curl in rage towards him. And he wants to make his own apologies, but there’s a bigger part of him that wants to be angry right back. Angry because every time he looks at her, she reminds him of everything he had to lose in order to stand before her. Angry because it's been a slow death ever since he’s walked through that front door.

But he pulls in his own fury, recognizes that it’s not the time or place. “I’m sorry, Lisa--” Says the words even though he half means them, his eyes giving him away.

“Stop, just stop.” Lisa shakes her head, her eyes coming to rest around the golden horned charm that rests against Dean’s chest. She stares at it for a beat and then lets her eyes meet Dean’s. “I think it’s a good idea for you to leave for the night.”

Dean doesn’t argue with her, doesn’t even say another word as he twists around and is heading for the stairs. When his feet hit the first couple, he pretends to not hear the sharp sigh that exits Lisa’s mouth with Dean’s unwillingness to give a damn about what had just happened. Instead he’s riding some kind of euphoria as he climbs the stairs, and it doesn’t leave when he’s reaching inside the dresser and into the closet to grab some of his things. He pulls his gun from under the mattress, sticks it in the band at the back of his pants and is jogging down the stairs and fisting the doorknob before he even thinks clearly again.

“Call me when you find a place.” Lisa’s voice worries behind him. She sounds like a ghost, her words barely scratching the surface of Dean’s ears.

Dean stills then, his back still turned away from her and he tries to feel a pang of guilt for walking out the door, but any tinge of pain he could feel is swallowed whole by the aching grand canyon in his gut--the one that belongs to Sam.

“Yea, Li--I will. I promise.” He whispers, just as ghostly. He hopes that she thinks he means it, but there’s a greater chance that she’s been waiting for this moment ever since he walked through this same door four years ago.

The door to the garage is open and shut behind him in one swift motion and then he’s climbing behind the steering wheel of the car that he’s missed terribly for years. When the engine comes alive around him, he instantly feels halfway _home._ He fists the necklace around his throat and eyes the empty seat with Sam’s backpack that is beside him. A blunt realization falls over him, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing or just where he’s going. Leaving now doesn’t bring Sam back, but his bones ache with the need to have at least one hunt under his belt. To pump some ghost with half a barrel of salt and maybe close his eyes and see his Brother’s face with more clarity than he has in a long time.

Dean puts Baby into drive and peels out of the driveway, leaving everything ‘apple pie’ and not his Brother--in the dust. And for the first time in days, maybe months-- _years_ , Dean feels a genuine smile etch its way across his lips.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Winona, Minnesota  
_(now)_

 

Dean’s got his fist in the back of some dude’s shaggy brown hair, his dick so deep, that his balls are almost inside as well and the guy below him is whining like crazy, which only propels the desperate need to be even further inside of him still.

Sam’s old Stanford hoodie barely fits the bulky frame of the man he picked up at a bar a few blocks away. But there’s still that telling burn hole on the bottom of it, a searing reminder of how his Brother’s lips had tasted with smoke curling out of his mouth. The memory causes Dean’s jaw to tighten as he moves his hands to pull on the hood, his hips slamming violently into the guy who could almost pass for Sam.

But it’s not Sam.

The reality hits Dean every time he catches the side profile of the man who desperately tries to twist himself around to look back at him. And it’s a heavy weighted feeling in his chest, when he’s convinced himself that sunset lit ocean eyes will greet him just like they always have, only to be jolted back to reality with whiskey amber ones looking back at him instead.

“Don…” Dean wheezes through his pulled lips, the burning tickle of rage clawing its way between his ribs. “Don’t look at me.”

“Why?” Not Sam questions, his head spinning defiantly around to find Dean’s lost gaze once again.

Dean feels Not Sam’s eyes roaming over his chest, feels them circling around the necklace that hangs from his chest. It makes every inch of his skin crawl, it makes him feel violated in ways that he doesn’t know how to vocalize. “I said, don’t look at me.” Dean’s nostrils flare as he says it, his nails digging themselves into Not Sam’s hips.

“Jesus… what is wrong with you?” Not Sam winces at Dean’s grip, the one that is undoubtedly drawing blood.

Not Sam tries to move away, but Dean digs his fingers in deeper, anchors them into the man’s hips and denies him an escape. And again, the man is whipping his head back towards Dean and this time his eyes are angry.

“This isn’t funny anymore, stop.” Not Sam bores his meaning into the back of Dean’s skull, but all Dean can hear and feel, is the pulse in his throat as it starts to jack hammer its way through ribs.

Dean fucks into Not Sam once more and then abruptly stills, his balls aching in protest at the sudden lack of movement. His impatient need is quickly forgotten when he feels something dark and something unforgiving, start to spark in the back of his brain. It feels like a match giving life to something that is better off left dead. And before he can even tame his crooked fingers, before he can even name the something that is crawling up the back of his throat, his hands are curling like snakes around Not Sam’s neck and squeezing.

Not Sam immediately jerks against Dean’s fingers, the sudden loss of oxygen, a complete surprise to his system. He struggles against Dean’s strong hold, before trying with his own hands to pry Dean’s fingers away. But the more he tries, the bigger that shadow in the back of Dean’s mind grows. As though, it feeds off Not Sam’s desperation, off his fear.

It’s only seconds before Dean is completely detached from his body, before the dark inside of him has complete control. And it’s even quicker, how fast Not Sam’s body goes limp, his pulse asphyxiated.

Dean waits with his hands around a dead man’s neck, just to make sure his prey is bound to the dark with him. He counts to a hundred and then counts to a hundred all over again. And when he’s finally sure, he lets go and pulls himself out of the still man, finding that he’s even harder than he was before. Without thinking, he wraps his hand around his beet red cock and starts stroking in a rhythm that begins all too slow and quickly becomes frantic and wild.

“I told you…” Dean bucks his hips into his own fist, bites his bottom lip hard enough to sting. “Fucking told you...why didn’t you listen--huh?” As though the stiffening corpse will open his eyes and give him an answer. “No one can look at me, not like that, not wearing his--his... _god._ ” His spine curls as the bundle of nerves around the head of his dick start to sing with electricity.

Dean mumbles a seemingly never ending string of _fucks_ and _shits_ as his fingers and palm take him closer and closer, stroke after desperate stroke, to his release. When he comes, it’s in long ropes that land messily over the front of Sam’s old Stanford hoodie. Dean paints it in white and as soon as his cock stops jerking in his hand, he feels the claws of his darkness start to recede. It’s like a tide, moving out at dawn and he feels his lungs take in air again. They burn as though he’s been holding his breath for hours.

But just as it’s rolling out, he looks down at the motionless man on the bed, with his soft brown hair and his too short limbs and he feels a flame of hatred boil in his stomach. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knows it’s misplaced, that it’s not Not Sam’s fault. But that is overridden with the image of a body that is not His Sam’s, filling in the coloring pages of a memory he can barely remember these days. Everything is wrong with what Dean sees, and mostly, he wants that goddamned sweater off of the dead man’s body. Wants it off in a way that is almost primal in its need.

Dean struggles with the weight of the man, folding him up and twisting his body to get the beloved red hoodie off of him. And after minutes, when it’s finally off, he feels a relief that is almost holy wash over him. As though, somewhere in his mind, he was actually scared he was going to lose it--as though maybe Not Sam would take that worn hoodie to his grave.

_Not over my dead body…_ Dean thinks to himself. _Not over my fucking dead body are you gonna steal this from me_.

Dean looks at the sweater in his hands, raises it up and sees where parts of him have stained the front of it. His lips curl in a wild smile, a delirious chuckle bubbling out of his mouth. And without really thinking about it, he finds himself sticking it over his head and pushing his arms through the sleeves. When it's on, it smells like a musty duffle bag, sweat, and come. He closes his eyes and thinks of a pink cheeked boy he used to know and he wonders how he ever thought he could live a day without him. Wonders what kind of steel he thought his heart was made of, to ever survive in a world without that boy’s sunshine. Because the truth of the matter is...is he’s fucking dying; he’s been dead ever since his Brother crawled into that hole in the ground.

Dean’s driving out of town around midnight, with the hoodie still on and the dead man in the backseat. And with every light that he passes, he’s anxiously looking into the rearview mirror, half expecting to see the man’s eyes open and staring at him. But he is always quickly reassured, with the overhead lighting, that the man is still lifeless--just like the time before.

Dean thought about leaving him, thought about doing to this guy what he had done to the other. But after much thought, a half a pack of cigarettes and a lengthy piss, he decided that he didn’t want to leave this one messy like he left the last. So, he stuffed him in the back and he decided he’d drive until he found a nice place to get rid of him.

It takes him two hours and another pack of cigarettes, before he feels far enough into the middle of fucking nowhere. When he pulls over, it’s dark and eerily quiet around him. And when the impala’s doors squawk into the night, Dean winces at the sound, as though there’s someone out there that’s gonna hear him. But he curses under his breath and tells himself that he’s a fucking idiot, before sticking his arms under Not Sam’s armpits and dragging him out of the car.

Dean’s sweating, the stanford sweatshirt wrapping him in his own heat, by the time he reaches far enough into the woods. He lays the body on the ground and turns back for the impala to get his shovel. It takes him only fifteen minutes before he’s back with Not Sam, digging him a shallow grave and wondering what Heaven would think of him now. Dean laughs at the thought and wipes his face with the back of his sleeve.

Dean’s muscles whine with every movement he makes, his body tired from the lack of sleep and from the overall exhaustion of having to dig a grave past midnight. Two hours fly by and Dean decides it’s deep enough to hold the poor man who thought he could ever be His Sam. He makes it quick, rolls him into the hole he dug, lights a match and burns the body. And when he feels like it’s good enough, when the fire starts to die down, he starts shoveling the dirt atop of Not Sam’s remains. The dirt bats out the remaining flames, nothing but smoke and the smell of burning flesh lingering in the air. When the grave is good and packed, Dean pats the top of the dirt with the bottom of his shovel for good measure.

“Rest in peace and all that…” Dean whispers, his entire body overworked and his eyes screaming from their sockets. He’s not sure what they need more, sleep or a drunken stupor. Maybe both.

When he reaches the impala, he opens the trunk and shrinks himself out of the sweatshirt. His body itches with the need of a hot shower, with the need to rid himself from the touch of a dead man’s ghost fingers. And the more he thinks about the life he just took, the more that need for screaming hot water, grows.

Dean swallows a wave of nausea down, leans against the trunk of the impala and puts on a clean white t shirt. He digs out his almost empty pack of cigarettes and sticks one in his mouth, lighting it up all in one smooth motion. The first drag is slow and deep, he can feel the smoke filling his lungs to their limit. He waits until it’s unbearable, holds it and lets it burn--lets it take ten years off his life, before he finally lets it go.

He reaches into his back pocket and finds one of his burner phones. He flips through the contacts and lets his thumb hover over send as Bobby’s number glares at him in the darkness. Bobby’s house is about a two hour drive from where he is, he could easily make it before sun up and he could steal a shower and maybe help with a hunt or two to take his mind off this string of nonsense he keeps finding himself in.

The phone only rings once before Bobby’s voice sounds. “FBI, this is Nugent.”

Dean smiles in the darkness and finds comfort in Bobby’s husky drawl. “Hey, Bobby.. It’s me--Dean.”

There’s silence on the other end, followed by the ruffling of papers and the old man clearing his throat. “Dean? Where the balls have you been?”

“Here. There. Everywhere.” Dean doesn’t expand on the more gruesome details of his most recent adventures.

“I’ve been worried sick, Lisa’s been calling me--she’s out of her mind. What the fuck is wrong with you, boy?” Dean pinches his nose with his hand and then takes another drag of his barely lit cigarette.

“Listen, I don’t have time to explain right now--but I’m about two hours away, care if I swing by and grab a shower and some z’s?”

Bobby sighs exaggeratedly and Dean swears he can feel the hot whiskey breath against his cheek. “Ya know you’re always welcomed here, ya idjit. I’ll warm up some of my leftovers from dinner, get your ass over here.”

“I’ll be there soon.” Dean finishes his cigarette and tosses it onto the ground, stomping it out with his foot, as he puts his phone back in his pocket.

He’s reaching for his keys in the back of the impala, when his eyes roam over the dirty red sweatshirt. Dean feels his jaw tense, feels his teeth grind with the fragmented memory of death that now belongs to it.

“Sorry, Sammy.” He whispers, guilt filling his chest. “I’ll fix it.” He follows and then shuts the trunk and gets back behind the wheel.

He’s halfway down the road when he realizes, there’s no fixing death.

Bobby’s waiting on the porch, beer in hand and a shotgun in his other. Dean approaches him slowly, readying himself for the onslaught of grief he’s got coming his way, but instead he’s greeted with a strong hug and a couple of loving pats on the back.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, son.” Bobby pulls away and turns to move through the front door. “Glad to see you’re okay.”

Dean follows, doesn’t tell Bobby that he’s far from okay--that he’s done some truly unforgivable things within the last few weeks. Knows that if Bobby had any inkling, he’d lock him in the Panic Room and throw away the goddamned key. Not that Dean would blame him, not that anyone could--it would probably be the best for everyone.

“I got some leftover steak that I grilled earlier on the table, there’s cold beer in the fridge. Help yourself, get yourself cleaned up and together. Tomorrow we’re talking about this little charade you’ve been going through. And I want the truth, ya hear me?” Bobby gives him that look, the one that makes Dean’s spine shiver, because he knows the old man is serious.

“Thanks.” Dean replies, knows he probably stinks and heads for the heavenly steak that is still warm on the plate.

“Mmmhmm, if ya need me I’ll be in the study.”

And just like that, Bobby is gone and Dean is left with the quiet kitchen and a warm steak that his stomach might still fight. He decides a cold beer might coax it to behave, so he chugs half of it and starts cutting into the overdone meat on his plate.

After the first bite, his stomach comes alive in a painful way, in a way that tells him he probably hasn’t eaten anything for a couple days. He tries to think back to the last thing he ate, but he comes up empty again and again.

When he’s done, he washes his dish up and then heads upstairs to Bobby’s spare. He pushes the door open and stills when it creaks, his mind struggling to pull up a memory that just won’t come to him. When the light is on, he can see that not much has changed since the last time he stayed there. The quilt on the bed is the same and there’s still a layer of dust on the desk on the other side of the room, the blinds are still half falling from one side and the picture over the bed is still off center. It feels like home, feels like something tangible and real. And his lungs let out a sigh as he sits on the edge of the bed, his body remembering the gentle dip in the center.

Dean kicks off his boots and pulls off the white shirt, leaving them haphazardly strewn by the bed. He’s unbuckling his belt and jeans as his feet make shuffling noises towards the bathroom adjacent to the spare. Luckily for him, the bathroom is also a spare and is more or less clean and unused. Dean twists the faucet to the shower into the hot position, as hot as it will go and finishes taking off his jeans and boxers outside of the shower.

Steam is rising when Dean steps in, the water scalding to the touch. Dean winces at the first few licks of it, but then he slowly starts to enjoy the pain of his reddening angry skin. Maybe he’ll be able to scrub off the demon that lives inside of him, the one that finds its hands around young boys’ throats, the one that calls on death because how dare anyone look at him in those ways, anyone but Sam.

_His_ Sam.

Dean drags his nails over the tender skin and feels a choked down sob climbing up the back of his throat at record speed. It bubbles up and out of his mouth before he can even clamp his hands over his mouth, before he can even try to swallow it back down. It’s hollow and terrified, it’s empty and full of sadness. And the tears that follow it, prick the back of his already heavy eyes and for the first time in a long time--Dean lets himself weep.

His tears get lost in the spray, get lost in the throbbing pain of his skin. His throat works around a knot and he presses his forehead to the side wall of the shower. The more he tries to stop himself from crying, the more he feels it coming on. It’s like a violent storm that he’s kept inside of him for too long, a hurricane of emotions that now swirl around him in an uncontrollable wind. He breathes wet sobs against the linoleum and feels the water start to lessen in its heat. Apparently the water heater can’t keep up with his need for the burning pain.

Dean curls his fist around the golden horned necklace that still lays over his chest and uses it as an anchor. He pulls himself out of his grief, takes a few deep breaths, and pushes his spine into a straight line. He finishes with his shower, ignoring how the water is long cold before he’s turning it off. He also desperately tries to ignore his shaking knees and his trembling hands as he carefully steps out of the shower.

If he’s thankful for anything, it would be for the steam covering the mirror. Because if there’s one thing he definitely doesn’t need, is a good long look at what reflects back at him. He’s not ready to face that tear stained monster, not today--maybe not ever.

The house is silent and the downstairs lights are off when Dean steps back out of the bathroom and is heading back for his room. He’s sure his long ass shower and his not so quiet sobs, didn’t go unnoticed and if there’s any worth in praying--he prays Bobby doesn’t ask about it in the morning. But knows well enough, that he’s only kidding himself with praying--because god sucks and Bobby is stubborn as hell.

The sheets stick to his skin, and his body hums with the vibration of heat and welting burns. But Dean finds comfort in it, finds himself trying to press harder into the mattress, trying anything to get his tender flesh to sing. Because anything is better than letting his mind wander into the memories that litter the room around him.

When his eyes close finally, he doesn’t even take one full breath before sleep takes him completely.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

Sioux Falls, SD - 2000  
_(15 years ago)_

 

The South Dakota summer heat is excruciatingly hot and mixed with its high humidity, it feels like Dean can barely breathe. Feels like he’s breathing through a goddamned straw all fucking summer long. But he sweats silently out in Bobby’s car yard, fixing up cars all the while, somehow trying to wade through the dumb fucking crush he’s apparently developed on his Brother.

When he mentally thinks over the word _crush_ , he winces, because it makes him feel like some high school pre-teen girl who has Johnny Depp posters in her locker. It makes it seem all too simple and too bubble gum scented for Dean’s tastes. It’s not a crush, as much as it’s a growing infatuation. A peaked interest in the way that Sam’s body is filling out and slowly starting to lose the baby softness he’s always had. And Dean’s only human, right? No one would blame him for suddenly taking an interest in his Brother’s changing body.

Right?

Dean’s deep in his thoughts, rolling the word _crush_ back and forth on his tongue and interchanging it with other words like _infatuation_ and _interest_. He’s stuffed the dirty little _incest_ word into the back of his mind and refuses to even think it, because no--that’s not what this is, how could that be--

Sam walks by, shirtless with running shorts on. His torso has been kissed beautifully by the sun, painting him in a shade that is almost sinful. He’s got his earphones on and his discman in hand and he’s headed out for his daily run. Dean stops breathing altogether at the sight-- _never fucking mind the heat_.

Dean’s jaw is in the dirt between his feet and the roaring sun above him is burning a nice little burn on the back of his neck, but he can only think about the heat that is growing in the front of his jeans. Sam looks over his shoulder, somehow sensing Dean’s eyes and offers a small smile. It’s enough to startle Dean guiltily, his wagging tongue forcibly being sucked back into his mouth as he drops his wrench and curses under his breath.

Bending over, Dean retrieves the fallen tool and tries to not take notice of how both his knees seem wobbly. And by the time he is standing back up, a rush of blood swirling to his head--Sam is halfway down the drive, already in a brisk jog. Dean watches as he goes, watches as the muscles in Sam’s back pull and stretch with every stride he makes and Dean’s half hard by the time Sam’s completely out of view.

“Jesus Christ…” Dean mumbles under his breath, as he palms his cock gently, trying to alleviate some of the building pressure.

He doesn’t make a show out of it, no matter how badly he wants to go around to the back of the yard, where no eyes can see him jerk one out in the midday sun. No, instead he grips the wrench tighter than before and gets back to work--trying to think about anything other than that beautiful boy he calls, his Brother.

Sam tells Dean about Stanford on the Fourth of July and it feels like Dean’s heart rips to shreds inside his chest. Feels like the ground falls out from under him and all he can do is look at Sam and see him in that field four years prior. Back when he was young, innocent and completely and one hundred percent, _his_. Back before he decided in having dreams that didn’t include Dean. Back before Dean’s heart decided that it was gonna dedicate its every beat to that sunflower hazeled Brother of his.

“Gonna be a lawyer, huh?” Dean asks, masking the hurt in his eyes the best as he can. Tries to hold himself together, even though he knows he’s doing a terrible job. “Gonna get out of the hunting life? Maybe that’s for the best.”

Sam misses the pain in Dean’s voice, even though Dean can hear it himself. Dean knows he’s missed it, because Sam’s smiling like Dean’s reaction is the only firework display he’d wanted to see in the first place. “Yea, I don’t know...But I’ve just never belonged here, Dean.”

Another knife to Dean’s chest. Maybe it’s true, maybe Sam was never meant for the hunting life--but Dean refuses to believe that Sam honestly thinks that he’s never belonged here, by his side.

“When do you go?” Dean asks quietly.

Sam’s eyes change hue, as though he’s finally picked up on something in Dean’s expression. Something that tells him that he’s knocking on cracked glass and it’s about to shatter with just the right pressure.

“Last week of August.”

Dean does break with those words.

When he does, he has no other choice but to replace that word _crush_ with the phrase _in love_. Because that’s when he realizes it’s his heart that has shattered into pieces, knows it’s the kind of broken that will never fix itself.

Two weeks after the Fourth of July, Dean is as high as a kite and laying on his back on the hood of the impala. He’s got a lit joint in one hand and his other is tracing his own numb lips with the tip of his fingers. He can almost imagine that they’re Sam’s lips, can almost imagine that the holiday never happened at all. But then he blinks and he realizes that he’s still here, that everything is still very much real.

Sam appears from the house and rounds around the back of the car to where Dean is sprawled, his eyes shifting emotion as they take in the state that Dean is in. Dean winces with Sam’s gaze, because he knows he’s doing a really shitty job of hiding just where his emotions are. He’s miserable and he’s drunk, high and pretty much out of fucks to give if Sam knows it or not.

“Dean…” Sam says. “Bobby wants to know if you’re gonna come in or sleep out here all night…”

“The fuck does he care? It’s hot as fucking hell in there and I ain’t hurtin’ no one right here.” Dean mumbles angrily and takes another hit of his blunt.

“It’s 3am, Dean.” Sam sighs. “You’ve been out here since 10.”

Dean stills with Sam’s words, as though he hadn’t really realized himself how long he’d truly been out here. But then he decides to suck it up, takes one last pull of his blunt before he flicks it onto the ground and slides off the hood of the car. Dean follows Sam back into the house and can’t help his mouth litter a list of profanities ranging from, _the miserable fucking bastard_ and _can no one leave me the fuck alone, jesus christ_.

It’s not until they’re both lying in their beds in Bobby’s spare bedroom, Sam on the cot in the middle of the room and Dean on the bed by the door, that Sam’s voice sounds in the quiet of the room.

“Are you okay?” His voice sounds scared, as though he knows the answer already, but just needs to confirm it with Dean.

Dean rolls on his side, facing the darkness and his Brother. He’s quiet for a long while and maybe Sam thinks he fell asleep, but finally he finds the strength to work his throat around the words.

“What do you think, Sam?” It comes out harsher than he had intended, but he blames the bottle of whiskey in his belly for the tone.

“I… I don’t know... “ It sounds honest, sounds like Sam’s been doing some thinking of his own these last few weeks. “I just want you to know, it’s not because of you. You don’t think…”

Sam goes quiet.

Dean doesn’t know where it comes from, but suddenly he’s got a chest full of laughter that is rumbling out of his mouth in the most condescending way. “Save it, Sammy.” Dean wheezes through the bouts of laughter. “‘sides, you said it yourself--never belonged here.”

And then, it’s Dean who falls silent. The room sways with the echos of his ridiculing laughter and the weight of his sudden silence.

“That’s not…” Sam starts and then corrects himself. “Dean. That’s not what I meant, how could you think that this is about you?”

There’s an edge of hurt in Sam’s voice now and Dean jerks with the sharp edge of it against his ears. God, he’s such an asshole. An epic fucking asshole.

“Ain't it though?” Dean whispers, wishing he didn’t sound so miserable and then he feels his stomach clench with the need to sweep those words under different ones. “Don’t worry bout it, Sammy… I’ll be fine. Go to sleep.” He lies, hopes it sounds convincing enough.

But the sound of cot springs whining and then the sound of shuffling feet tells him that he better not quit his hunting gig for acting any time soon.

The bed around Dean shakes and then the mattress dips further with the added weight of Sam’s body, as his Brother lies down next to him. And Dean’s lungs stop working for the nine hundredth time that summer, because they haven’t shared a bed in quite a few years and with Dean’s recent existential crisis over how he’s fallen in love with his Brother--he doesn’t anticipate ever breathing again.

Not with Sam this close to him.

Sam pulls at Dean’s shoulder, wordlessly asking for him to roll over and face him. Dean complies, his bones feeling heavier than they should, but maybe that’s just the dread that is living in his stomach. When he’s facing Sam, he tries to ignore the heat of his Brother’s stare, tries to tell himself that he can breathe, that he just has to remember where his lungs are. But before he can locate them, Sam’s hand finds its way to Dean’s cheek, his thumb tracing over Dean’s cheekbone. And it’s so intimate, so delicate and gentle that Dean swears he’s melting into nothing with the gesture.

“I mean it, if I had my choice...if I could pick, I would want both _**you**_ _and_ a life without hunting.” Sam tries to explain. “I would want you always, Dean. I always have...this, this doesn’t change that--nothing could.”

It sounds like a confession, one that Dean’s short circuiting brain is having a hard time grasping the gravity of. His brain still cotton soft with the kiss of weed and the blur of alcohol. But what he can focus on, what he can understand is the touch of Sam’s hand on his cheek and how it makes him feel like he’s finally rooted to the earth again.

“Say somethin’” Sam nudges, his hand stilling on Dean’s cheek.

“ _Stay_.”

It’s the only thing Dean can say, the only thing that he can force out of his mouth. And it’s a confession in his own right. It exposes his ugly heart and how it beats crookedly for things it shouldn’t want.

Sam’s mouth presses to the corner of Dean’s lips, feather light and unsure--as though he’s waiting for the coming ways Dean will curse him out for it. And for a second, Dean wants to do just that, wants to yell and scream and curse him to the other side of the world and back--but instead he finds his own hands up and onto the sides of Sam’s face. Finds himself aligning their lips better, for easier glide and slowly deepens the kiss.

Dean’s idling heart jumps with the heat of Sam’s lips, it makes the blood in his veins come alive again, makes the soft cotton bed his brain was rolling in--start to thin out. Because this, this is what he’s wanted all summer long--maybe even longer if he really thought about it. And god, he’s kissed plenty of people, but kissing Sam makes him feel like he’s in outer space, like time and reason simply do not exist to begin with.

The kiss grows hungrier, like they’re two wolves and their blood pumping hearts are the only prey that they’ve had in months. It begins to intensify, with nips and bites, the kind that has Dean’s bottom lip swelling with a ribbon of blood and Sam’s throat glowing with the nice ache of Dean’s teeth. Hours seemingly pass, just the two of them kissing like their bodies were designed for nothing else. And Dean, Dean loses himself into the softness of Sam’s neck and leaves his body when that summer mouth of his Brother’s attaches itself to his own throat. The marks Sam leaves there might as well be a tombstone, because Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to live another day--not with the ecstasy of his Brother’s experienced mouth digging graves along the ribs of his neck.

Sam’s body climbs on top of Dean’s, their groins meeting for the first time through the trappings of their boxers and it has both of them grunting in unison at the explosion of need that courses through their bodies. The moonlight from the window, catches in Sam’s eyes and Dean sees everything he’s never seen before. It’s all there, a trove of confessions hanging like diamonds in the night of Sam’s midnight eyes. He’s always loved Dean, he’s always wanted this too. Dean growls as he recognizes Sam’s expressions as his own, that lovesick need and revels in the knowledge that it’s never been just him.

Dean arches his hips off the bed and lets his little Brother know that he’s still alive, that he’s still on board and that he’s ready to swim or die trying. Sam’s hips shudder at the sudden friction and his fingers curl into Dean’s ribs, desperately trying to hold on. And fuck, the sight of his Brother so lost on the feel of himself against him, makes Dean whine like a wounded dog. Makes Dean sit up and flip Sam onto his back on the mattress, makes him pull his and Sam’s boxers down just enough to get their cocks together.

It takes some awkward first attempts, before Dean’s precome slicked up hand is wrapped tightly around the both of them. And when he starts fucking his hand, his dick gliding magically against Sam’s, they both seem to white out with the raw pleasure of it. It starts slow like this, just Dean fucking and keeping them tightly together--the pressure of their cocks together almost enough for him to come instantly.

But then Sam starts to curl his hips upwards, starts to fuck up as Dean is fucking down. It’s too much, it’s not enough and Dean’s hand is slipping because his body is fucking jello all around him, as his balls squeeze with his oncoming orgasm running up the back of his spine. And Sam’s hand is there then, knowingly lacing one of his free hands with Dean’s, their clasped hands around the both of them as their grind picks up speed.

“Ughh, fuck fuck, ugh...jesus, Sammy.” Dean wheezes erratically as his balls clench up even tighter, his last pump blasting him over the edge and pinning him against the stars. He comes violently, his voice filling the room with sounds that he’s never heard and they only intensify when he feels Sam start to come with him.

“Dean, Dean, Dean…” It’s a mantra, a prayer, a confession and where Dean is loud, Sam chokes his sound down and keeps it inside of himself.

When they’re both covered in a mix of their come and their bodies are still vibrating with aftershocks of orgasm, Dean rolls off his Brother and curls around the growing length of Sam’s body. They lay like that, the window glowing with the first rays of daylight and for the first time in several days, the thought of sleep doesn’t seem as far-fetched and unchaseable as it's been.

And Dean’s almost there, almost touching that silent place when Sam’s voice stirs him back to the surface.

“I love you.” Sam’s voice is shaky, as though he’s on the verge of tears and Dean feels a wave of panic fly up the back of his throat. “Always have, always will.”

Dean finds Sam’s hand, laces them tightly together and squeezes with all the strength he can muster.

“I love you, too, Sammy.” His own voice betraying him, cracking with a wave of emotion he didn’t know was there. “Always have, always will.” He whispers into Sam’s ear, just loud enough for him to hear.

Sam’s hand squeezes Dean’s fiercely and his body turns slightly to curl into Dean better.

Sleep takes them then, both of them tangled together, just as helplessly as they’ve always been.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

Sioux Falls, SD  
_(now)_

 

_“Always have, always will…”_

Dean wakes abruptly, his mind spinning its tires at the ghosting voice of his Brother’s words in his ear. He knows it was a dream, knows that it was just a memory of days when life was actually worth living--back when happiness had a name and it sounded a lot like _Sammy_ falling from his tongue.

He tries blinking himself out of the remaining nostalgia that clings to the back of his lids, but his eyes feel like they’re caked in cement. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries harder to open them fully, but he’s immediately greeted with the sharp pains of a headache.

_Wonderful_.

The room around him is warm, the midday sun already soaking the space around him in its rays and he realizes that he must’ve been out for a long time. He tries to move, but his body fights him and refuses to comply. The back of his tongue clings to the roof of his mouth and is begging for moisture; he can still taste the beer he guzzled down last night with his dinner. And then he remembers Bobby’s words from the night before, and all will to get up evaporates entirely from his body.

He lays there, staring across the room and out the window, watching the trees outside sway with the gentle breeze and he can’t help but wish the bed around him was a coffin. Can’t help but wrap the thin blanket around him tighter and wish it was dirt, because at least he’d be in the ground and somewhat closer to Sam. At least, he’d be where he’s belonged for years and not living life like some ghost he should probably burn the bones of. The irony of just that, hangs around his throat and his voice tries to dispense an incredulous sounding chuckle, but it's silenced long before his lungs even try to make a sound.

Instead he turns over, onto his back, and reaches his hand up to scratch at the scruff he hasn’t shaved in days. He stares at the ceiling and tries to find the energy to deal with the bundle of joy that is waiting for him downstairs. His arms reach for the nightstand and curl around the last of his menthols, digging one out and slipping it between his lips. Bobby’ll probably kill him for lighting up in there, but he’s most likely already bound to do it anyways. It’s just icing on the cake, just a fucking cherry to top it all.

Dean lights up and immediately his body responds to his wheezing lungs, as they poison his veins with nicotine. And even though he can already feel it, he knows he’ll need at least five more before he’s gonna be ready to head down and face Bobby. So, he takes his time, smokes his first and moves effortlessly onto his second. He’s smoking his third when he starts to sit up, his feet landing on the ground soundlessly. His lips curl around the smoke and he’s blowing o’s into the midday sunlight that filters harshly through the room. And he’s just about to light his fourth before Bobby comes flying through the door.

Bobby’s presence has Dean’s head spinning on his shoulders and the unlit cigarette fumbling from his fingers, as he heaves out ‘ _shit’_ under his breath. He waits for Bobby to say something, but the man just looks at him with irritation in his eyes. Dean looks at Bobby’s hand, where it’s tightened around the knob of the door and knows that it’s probably less irritation and more anger.

“Ugh, Sorry..” Dean tries, but knows he fails when Bobby shakes his head and turns to leave.

Halfway down the hall, Dean can hear Bobby whispering to himself, can hear him say, _gonna have to fill his ass with rock salt_. Dean, of course, clearly hearing the glaring intention behind those words, as though the old man is gonna go straight for his guns while he waits for Dean to get his shit together and come down stairs.

Bobby’s a patient man, Dean knows this more than anything. Also knows, that Bobby loves him like his own, but even love has its limits--especially when you’ve been fucking up left and right like he's been doing lately. He just doesn’t know how to tell Bobby that this is it, that this is all he’ll ever be without Sam. Because, Sam is what made him good in the first place, he’s what made the light at the end of the road-- _shine_. And Dean’s lost without him, without that light. He’s been fumbling around in the dark for years, pretending he wasn’t afraid of it.

But god, it scares him now.

And it’s scaring everyone else who still loves him, too.

A half hour later, he’s sitting across from Bobby, with the desk that is littered with books, paper and empty glasses of whiskey standing between them. It’s quiet, and normally Dean wouldn’t be one to complain about it, but it’s the kind that has him feeling like he wants to peel his skin off. His stomach rolls over in his belly and he tries to swallow, but he ends up clearing his throat instead.

“You know, I’ve seen….” Bobby starts, his top teeth warring at his bottom lip with agitation. “I’ve seen a goddamned lot in my life, son.” He says it and then leans back in his wooden desk chair, letting his words sit in the space between them for a second.

Too long if Dean were to be honest.

“I’m not sure what crawled out of your ass lately, but it’s a damn shame what you’re doin’ to that woman.” Bobby pats his desk for emphasis as he repeats his words, “A goddamned shame.”

Dean looks down at his fingers, swears he can still see blood from that John Doe in Toledo, still crusted in the beds of his nails. He scrapes at it with his thumb nail and it doesn’t go away, so he looks up and away from it. Bobby’s staring at him like he just can’t figure out what is sitting in front of him. And Dean wants to shrug along with Bobby, because fuck he can’t even look at himself in the mirror.

“And that kid….” Bobby adds, reaching for the almost empty bottle of whiskey on his desk. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you, Dean?”

That is the million dollar question right there. It should be blaringly obvious, Dean shouldn’t even have to say his name--but it’s pushing at his tongue with bitterness.

“Before you say his name,” Bobby points his finger in Dean’s direction. “Don’t think I don’t know how hard it was for you to lose him, but that is not an excuse. It's been almost five years. You should be doing what you promised him, not throwin’ the one thing he wanted you to have--down the goddamned drain.”

Dean stills then, his spine jarring in his back at Bobby’s words. His Brother’s name rolls back under his tongue and then he unconsciously reaches for the token that’s under his shirt and resting against his chest. Bobby watches him reach for it too, watches as he pulls it up and into the light of the room around them, his calloused hand aching around the smallness of it.

“I wasn’t happy, Bobby.” Dean finally speaks. “I tried to be, I tried so fucking hard-- _for him_. And it’s like I was waiting for an excuse to leave, even though I know that I promised him I’d stay.” Dean admits, his hand never leaving the amulet.

Bobby nods, takes a sip of his whiskey and goes back and forth between Dean’s face and where Dean’s hand hangs against his chest.

“I remember…” Dean starts and then stops to clear his throat again. “I remember throwing this thing away and having to live with what that did to him. It was hard, I could barely look at him, because I know I fucked up...knew I couldn’t fix it either.”

Bobby pushes a glass of whiskey towards Dean and Dean reaches for it reflexively. Dean swallows a sip of it, lets his chest appreciate the warmth of it. Knows he’ll need that amber gold to keep him together through his next words.

“All these years later, Bobby and come to find he _kept_ it.” Dean feels a knot slip up the back of his throat, feels the tears well against the back of his eyes. And he doesn’t even try to hide them, doesn’t know if he’s even capable of it anymore. “Hid it right under my nose and he went into that pit thinking I had never wanted it back. How could he--”

The tears come then. Big, sorrowful and wet tears that slide down his cheeks and across his lips. Bobby’s chair creaks with movement and then silences, as though he contemplates getting up to comfort him and then rules against it. Dean turns his face away, tries to get a grip on his quivering lips and is betrayed when the tears only intensify.

“That boy loved you, with his whole damned heart.” Bobby says softly, his body leaning into the desk. As though if he leans close enough, Dean’ll hear him better. “Ain’t nothing that necklace coulda done to change that.”

Dean looks back at Bobby and knows somewhere that what he says is true, but the guilt that has filled his body is too thick to disperse that easily.

“Beating yourself up over it, ain’t helping anyone. Least of all, you.”

Dean lets go of the necklace and grabs for the glass of whiskey. He chases it down, all the way and lets it pool in his stomach. It burns there for a second before he puts the glass down and wipes his eyes with his hands.

“I know, Bobby. I do.” Dean tries to find an exit out of this conversation, because there’s a pile of confessions that are boiling beneath his ribs and he’s straws away from admitting them all. And then what then?

He doesn’t want to find out.

“Good. Let’s get you put back together, maybe get a hunt under your belt and get this out of your system.”

Bobby’s words sting, even though Dean knows he doesn’t mean them in the way Dean has understood them. Knows that Bobby would never insinuate that Sam could ever be flushed entirely from his system. Knows that Bobby’s words have good intentions and he clings to them, even hopes desperately that he’s right.

After all, there’s never been anything a good hunt couldn’t fix.

He ends up in Lincoln, Nebraska.

There’s been some strange deaths in a house on the outskirts of town and Bobby seemed pretty sure it was just your average, run-of-the-mill ghost. An easy case, shouldn’t take him more than a few days, just enough to shake his nerves back into place.

Dean spends most of the first day reading up on newspaper articles and jotting down phone numbers of those that were close to the victims. He makes a list of things to do in the morning, starting with a visit down the the local police station and ending with a supply run for salt.

It feels good to be focused on something outside of himself, feels like he’s finally touching sanity, like his feet are securely planted in reality. Dean leans back in the wobbly desk chair and stretches his bones, the flash of a bar just up the road, rolling through his head. His tongue waters, because come to think of it, he could use a stiff drink and some greasy ass bar food, before he attempts to crawl into that lumpy hotel bed.

Dean grabs his keys and is out the door without another thought.

Dean’s three beers and half a basket of bbq wings in at The Watering Hole, when the blonde bartender starts to really stir his dick. Her white t-shirt is carving low on her chest, exposing that nice rack she is toting around and of course Dean’s taken notice. And the fact that he’s this excited about curves, long blond hair and soft skin, makes him all that much more interested in getting her back to his room by the end of the night. Because this, this is normal--this is what he’s used to and he clings to these familiar emotions with a vice grip. As though, if he fucks her, he’ll be okay in the end.

That everything will somehow be okay in the end.

Her name is Chelsea and Dean doesn’t miss an opportunity to say it, her cheeks staining pink every time he offers her a wink. It’s easy, just like it always has been--he’s never had to try hard to lure a warm body back to wherever he’d been staying. She’s off in an hour and Dean asks for another beer. “It’s on the house…” She replies cutely, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Of course it’s on the house, because soon he’s gonna be on top of her.

Dean finishes the rest of his wings and moves from beer to shots of tequila. By the time an hour rolls by, his legs are swimming under him and his vision is blurry. But his dick, it’s still there with all its want and he’s still sober enough to wrap his arm around Chelsea’s neck as he guides her out the door and towards that shiny black beast he tenderly refers to as _baby_.

She’s laughing at him as he opens the door and offers his assistance to guide her in, says gentlemen are rare these days and are a nice sight to see. Dean grins back and tries to look good enough to drive as he walks back to the driver’s side. And he’s just got his fingers wrapped around the door handle when a voice makes him stop dead in his tracks.

It can’t be. _No_.

Dean shakes his head and curls his fingers to lift the handle, writes the similarity off as just a symptom of how many shots he’d had at the bar.

He’s got the door open when he hears the voice again, deep in it’s rumble, serious in it’s tone. This time, it's got Dean looking over his shoulder and searching behind him for the face that he knows can’t be there. But there’s still something in his chest that hopes and prays for it to be the one person he knows it shouldn’t be.

“You comin’?” Chelsea leans over and tries to find Dean’s attention. And she should have his full attention, with her boobs spilling over that way.

“Yea…” Dean says, half distracted, his line of vision coming up with nothing again and again.

He waits for a few more seconds before he climbs behind the wheel and offers the sweet little thing beside him a peck on the cheek. Her eyes are sky blue and her skin is pale in a way that makes him want to taint it with his touch. Wonders what his hand-print would look like on the round of her ass, wonders what his nails could do if he just applied the right pressure.

Dean shifts in seat, his dick already whining between his legs and he pushes that voice into the back of his mind, pushes it because it’s exactly that voice that’s got him so twisted up inside. Because it’s not real, because Chelsea is and because he’s gonna fuck his way into being okay again.

And he’s got his eyes on the prize once again, is eyeing her from the driver’s seat as he turns to pull out of the driveway. He barely registers the tall framed man with shaggy brown hair walking towards the bar, barely notices the striking resemblance between him and the bodies that he’s littered behind him.

_I’m gonna be fine_ , he thinks. _Just fine_.

By the time he gets Chelsea on the other side of his motel room door, she’s wanting to do ninety and he’s wanting to go slow. It’s messier than it should be, they’re out of sync and awkward. But they keep trying, both of them trying to slow down and speed up to keep up with the other. And by the time they fumble their clothes off and she’s got her knees on the ground before him, his half hard dick in her hand and her breasts soft against his inner thighs, he feels himself get what he likes to call ‘whiskey dick’.

Doesn’t stop Chelsea from trying though, doesn’t stop her from wrapping his softening cock in her mouth and trying to improve the situation. He tries to think of everything tried and true that will get him up and when he’s halfway down the list, his brain fumbles around the image of his Brother. And once Sammy’s there, beautiful and bare, right there behind his lids--he doesn’t want to let him go.

There’s a sharpness to this image that he’s had a harder time capturing as the years have gone by. The clarity of his Brother’s face, the mole on his cheek and those lust blown hazel eyes of his, looking at him like he’s a god. And it feels so good to pretend Sam is looking at him like that, makes his skin roll with goosebumps at just the thought of it.

Whiskey dick is usually a deal breaker, but somehow a miracle happens and his dick thickens in Chelsea’s mouth. She hums around him in approval, probably half high on the fact that she was able to get him hard again. Probably would be horrified to know he was thinking of his dead Brother’s mouth around his cock and not hers.

He fucks her from behind, fucks her hard and urgently, as though he’s afraid to go soft again. She’s loud, too, whines like some goddamned porno and it’s not like Sam, it’s so far away from the mouse sounds his Brother used to make. And more than anything, he just wants her to shut the fuck up so he can close his eyes and strain to hear those precious breaths Sam used to squeak.

Unconsciously, he wraps his hands around her neck and presses to choke. It’s gentle squeezes, nudgings for her to get the goddamned message. He doesn’t need those exaggerated screams, he just needs the sound of his Brother’s heartbeat--and he’s so close, so close to hearing it.

Chelsea quiets, her breath huffing through the chokehold Dean’s got on her. Every few pumps in, she’ll make a small moan and Dean smiles because he’s back in his reverie of those sinful eyes on the length of his skin. He leans into Chelsea and tries to get deeper inside of her, tries to get closer to Sam by fucking her as thoroughly as he can.

His balls betray him though, they fucking squeeze tight and pulse out of nowhere, his entire body jolting inside of Chelsea as he comes in long aching fucks. He’s sad by the time his dick stops pulsing against her, sad even when she’s climbing off of him and turning around to claim his lips. She kisses him lazily, her lips curved upwards in happy little quotation marks against Dean’s pliant and apathetic ones.

“Can’t believe,” Chelsea pulls away, her eyes devilish. “Never did get your name.”

“It’s Dean.”

“Ahh…” She says, her head tilting backwards. “Fitting.”

Dean doesn’t really care about what she thinks of his name though. Doesn’t even care for these idle pleasantries, the after sex tango that is more or less always awkward.

“Did ya need a ride back over there?” Dean clears the air and there’s immediate disappointment that paints over her eyes.

“Uh, I can walk.” Her voice is less peppy, more cold than before.

“Sure?” Dean checks, but quietly prays that he doesn’t have to leave this room.

“It’s fine.”

Five minutes later, she’s throwing her jacket back over her shoulders and is leaning down to put her boots back on. It’s wordless, but Dean watches nonetheless, counting the seconds he has to wait until he’s alone. And when she’s put back together, she’s looking over her shoulder with her hand on the door.

“See ya.” She waits a beat after saying them and then is through the door without another word.

The room falls quiet, the sudden stillness, calming, but in a way--also disturbing.

Dean lays back on the bed, tries to breath through sweat and sex, tries to get a good lungful of air into his lungs. When he does, he traps it there, forcing his ribs to stay expanded for as long as he can. When his lungs burn and his eyes water, he lets it out. And when he’s empty again, he feels the hollowness of his bones and can’t help but imagine himself as a decaying carcass--rotting away from the inside out.

He focuses on that emptiness inside of himself, studies it and basks in the tragedy of it. And when sleep claims him, the silhouette of a tall man with shoulder length brown hair flashes before his eyes. His lips turn into a smile as the world fades from view around him. His last thought before the dark nothing takes him--

_What if it was him?_


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

Palo Alto, CA - 2015  
_(6 months ago)_

 

Dean arrives on the West Coast, after an almost deadly fight with a Rugaru in Boise left him with a sharp gash on his shoulder and some bruised ribs. It should have been an easy hunt, but it was only his second one back on the job and he was either too rusty or too fucked up. Too rusty, because it’d been a lot of years since he was the fine tuned hunter he once was. Too fucked up, because he wasn’t anywhere close to being sober. And he barely managed to finish the job with his goddamned arm still attached.

When he left Boise, he just started driving. Pedal to the metal, only stopping long enough to eat and swim himself to the bottom of another bottle of booze. It’s destructive, goddamned reckless and even if he knows it--he finds himself almost wishing for death to swallow him whole. Like, he has some kind of fucking death wish.

His eyes squint when the sunny horizon of Palo Alto comes into view and his mind slowly starts to drift to the surface of whatever slumber the constant lick of alcohol had him under. The place looks familiar in all the ways he never got to know it all those years ago. He never bothered to stay much when Sam had gone to school there. All he ever did was drive his car slowly by the school grounds, just hoping to catch a sight of that boy he loved. And even now, as he drives by the front of the school, he can’t help himself from scanning the crowds of people--just hoping, praying, to see that brown shaggy hair bobbing through the masses.

But just as he expected, his eyes come up empty.

Somehow he makes the decision to hole up there, finds a hotel in town and temporarily puts up his feet in the one place Sam had once come to call _home_. And it makes him feel closer to his Brother in a way he can’t describe, in a way that simultaneously makes it the best, worst place to be. The best, because he misses Sam in a way that makes every inch of him ache and being here somehow soothes the pang. The worst, because he misses Sam in a way that makes every inch of him ache and being here somehow sharpens the pain.

It’s both.

It’s like putting a finger in that slowly healing hole in his shoulder, with the right pressure it can feel good and scream all at the same time. That’s the kind of flashing pain he’s been needing lately. It's got him feeling high and also gasping for air at the surface of his mind.

He spends more than half of his time at the local bars around town, sitting by himself with a glass of whiskey in hand. He buys his time, finding that he can’t help his eyes from latching themselves to the silhouettes of college boys that look like Sam if he squints. The ones that are tall, skinny reminders of that summer tanned boy that once chose a strange place instead of him. And even as he says it in his mind, he knows Sam would hate that he still thinks of it like that.

But how else are you supposed to reconcile the day everything you’ve ever loved, decides to pack its bags and head for a new home? One that isn’t by your side, that isn’t in your arms?

Sam made a choice and even now, Dean can’t help but wonder about how things might be different. Wonders about the night he came looking for Sam after their Dad went missing, wonders about how he basically dragged Sam back into the life he had so desperately tried to escape. Wonders if maybe Sam might still be alive if had just stayed away, if he had just kept his dirty hands out of the dreams Sam tried so hard to achieve. Wonders if he had just been strong enough to do it on his own, wonders if things might be all too different now. That maybe Sam wouldn’t be some haunted memory in the depths of Hell’s deepest hole, that maybe in some kind of alternate reality, he’d be sitting there at the bar and drinking with his Brother.

About three days into his little stayover in California, he starts to have that itch he’d sometimes get--even with Sam. The kind that could only be reached from the inside, the kind that would have him bending himself over like some kind of origami prince and waiting to be colored back to life from the inside out. It’s an empty feeling, a burn in his ribs that can only be met with sharp nails at his back and a good fuck while he’s on his knees.

He used to hate this feeling, used to push it so far inside, that he could sometimes forget about it. But Sam, bless him, loved every side of Dean--even at his ugliest, that kid still found something worthy of love inside of his Brother. And it was only ever Sam who got to see him spread apart and open, only Sam who got to touch the deepest parts of him and make him feel alive--whole.

Sam was the only person he trusted with that side of himself, the side where he could let go. Where he could be taken, where he could be uninhibited in a way that felt against the grain. Sam’s body was the only shade he ever allowed himself to be swallowed in, to be vulnerable under.

But Sam is gone and the persistence of that feeling has only ever intensified over the years. To the point where he now sits in a bar on the other side of the country from his apple pie life, the amulet around his neck and his knees desperately hungry to feel the burn of carpet.

Dean fists his beer bottle and wishes they were cheap motel sheets, his eyes peering out behind and into the sea of college skin. And he can’t help but feel like a wolf, stalking its prey in the wild.

Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. His eyes roam from one head to the other and his stomach finds something unworthy about them all. Too blonde, too brown, not the right length, too short, on and on.

The bar door opens and in stumbles a miracle. Dean swallows with the electricity of what his eyes behold. The shade of brown is near perfect, the cut similar and the frame of this doe-eyed college boy is as close as Dean’s ever gonna get. As close as he’ll ever get again to the real thing, because the real thing is--

Dean chugs the rest of his beer and chases the burning in his chest away. Instead he lets parts of himself he’s hid away for years, come tumbling out of his chest-like closet. The parts of him that are rough around the edges, but also softer. The ones that crave an echo to sound within him for days, his knees already thirsty with the crooked walk. He licks his lips and scratches his cheek, watches as this honey skinned college boy makes his way to the bar.

As luck would have it, he settles an elbows space next to Dean. Dean who is watching him slyly from under the curtain of his lashes, his fingers still straining with desperation around the neck of his empty beer bottle.

“Hey Dylan,” The bartender greets. “Same ol’ same ol’?”

Dylan gives a nod, followed by a mega watt smile. It’s so bright, so happy and everything Dean is not.

Like a moth to a porch light, Dean finds himself leaning into Dylan without even meaning to. Their elbows collide and Dylan abruptly looks over at Dean and offers an apologetic smile.

“Oh, sorry…”

Dean’s knees shake with the need to bend, with the need to have this boy stuffed so far inside of him. “Don’t mention it.” He winks.

“Let me buy you another round of--” Dylan looks at the empty beer bottle and Dean’s white knuckles.

“Whiskey.” Dean finishes, his fingers somehow unwinding themselves around the beer bottle and moving it to the side of him.

“Hey Jane, can we get my friend here glass of Blue Label..” Dylan looks to Dean for his preference.

“Neat.” Dean offers.

“Blue Label--neat.” Dylan finishes and gives a thank you nod to Jane.

A few seconds later, Dean’s got his sweaty palms around a whiskey glass and Dylan is telling him about some final he just finished. Dean tries to play interested, tries to cover up how obviously his eyes are mowing over Dylan’s body. Tries to hide the ways he’s doing equations in his mind, trying to imagine what this college boy would look like over him. Wonders if he could somehow pretend enough, to soothe the ache that throbs deep in his bones.

“What about you?” Dylan questions, his eyes looking somehow beneath the surface of Dean’s skin. As though they’re trying to figure out the story of the guy that’s sitting next to him.

“Out here for a job.” He lies. “Ended up being a little longer than I expected, so I’ve been calling this place home for the mean time.” Another lie.

Dylan nods, doesn’t detect that anything is off. Dean nods at his own glass of whiskey and then takes a sip.

“What do you do for a living?” It’s an honest question.

Dean flips through his list of options and settles on, “Exterminator.”

“Oh, “ Dylan smiles. “So you hunt those nasty things no one likes and get rid of them?”

Dean laughs, because it’s fucking funny how close it is to the real deal. “Yea, pretty much.”

“That’s cool.” Dylan finishes his rum and coke.

Dean follows suit and finishes his whiskey in one long gulp. And when he comes back up for air, Dylan’s got his eyes on him in a way that tells him that perhaps they’re finally gonna get the fuck out of here.

“You smoke?” Dylan questions and Dean sighs, because _yes,_ it’s the perfect way to get them both outside.

Dean pats his pocket and checks for his cigarettes. “Mmyea, I could use one.”

And just like that, Dean’s following Dylan outside and into the cool California air. Dean feels his cheeks pulse with the warmth of alcohol as he follows Dylan to a run down, blue Ford Escort. Dean can’t help but smile when he sees it, because it fits with the whole college outfit. It’s endearing.

Dylan leans against the hood of his car, the paint pretty badly chipped and pulls out a tin box from his pocket. Dean’s eyes immediately latch onto the glinting box, the one that shines under the parking lot lights. And he can’t help it, his chest fills with an anxiety he hadn’t anticipated feeling. When Dylan opens the tin and out comes the sticky scent of cheap weed and along with it, comes a lifetime of memories that Dean’s tried so hard to put away for the night.

“You want some of?” Dylan’s fingers hold up an already rolled up blunt.

Before Dean can answer, he watches as Dylan puts it between his lips and flicks his lighter to light it up. Dylan takes a deep inhale, his eyes closing as his lungs fill completely. And when they’re tight enough, he opens his eyes and hands the joint over to Dean. Dean, who hasn’t even decided if he wants it or not.

Dylan watches as Dean hesitates, his eyebrows furrowing in a question mark and then smoothing out as he blows smoke out.

“Ugh, sorry...I just figured you’d be into it. My bad.”

Dean’s chest lurches and he’s suddenly fumbling over his words. “No, no.. I do _smoke_.”

Dylan moves the blunt back over to Dean and Dean grabs it. It’s heavy in his hands, feels like a block of cement. And his fingers shake with the weight of it, shake desperately with memories that swim on the other side of its lit end. But Dean licks his lips, plays cool and brings the warm butt of it to his lips.

The first pull has him coughing, his cigarette lungs betraying him horribly. His cheeks become fire red immediately and embarrassment paints him whole. Dylan giggles with Dean’s amateur sounding coughs. And Dean feels a flare of anger curl against his ribs.

“Here…” Dylan offers, taking the blunt back and pulling in a lungful of smoke.

Dean watches as Dylan’s hands reach for him, watches as those full lips move towards him gently. And when he’s close, the heat of Dylan’s body colliding with his own--he closes his eyes. Immediately he sees those summer hazel eyes, sees the seventeen year old Brother who once stood before him, like he now stands before Dylan. His lips are pliant as Dylan wedges his thumb between them, prying him open and Dean feels the warm smoke enter his mouth.

“Breathe it in.” Dylan instructs and Dean starts sucking it in.

Immediately his mind becomes cotton, his nerves soothing where they’ve been firing off constantly. His spine settles, his heels feel rooted to the ground and the loudness of his broken heart, quiets. He holds it in, this little piece of heaven, for as long as he can. Holds it until he’s not sure if he’s even holding it in at all, until he’s not sure if he’s even still alive.

When he lets it go finally, he leans forward slightly and his lips press into Dylan’s waiting ones. Dean’s eyes shoot open and Dylan’s eyes dare him to pull away. But Dean doesn’t, instead he’s clawing for Dylan’s neck, trying to anchor him into his mouth deeper and tighter still. Dean kisses Dylan with every ounce of skill he can muster, kisses the word _amateur_ right out of his fucking mind. Because this isn’t Dean’s first rodeo, and college boy can keep his mocking giggles to himself.

Dean pushes Dylan back into the beat up car behind him and starts to go to town on Dylan’s neck. And Dylan angles his neck perfectly, allowing him full access, giving him permission to bite out his jugular if Dean insists. Dean makes a show out his mouth, proves himself worthy with every nip, suck and lick. He kisses Dylan dizzy, kisses him until he can no longer taste that green on his tongue.

“Jesus.” Dylan says as Dean pulls away, leaving swollen red lips in his wake.

Dean smiles then, grabs for the forgotten blunt in Dylan’s hand and finishes it off in one pull. This time his lungs expand like pros and his lips blow out circles that frame Dylan’s face and then dissipate when they collide with his skin.

“Did ya wanna..” Dean starts, eyeing over his shoulder towards his own car.

Dylan follows his line of vision and nods approvingly. “She yours?”

“Yea, yea she is.”

Dean heads toward the black beast that shines under the street lights and Dylan follows willingly behind.

When they’re both in the car, Dean starts the engine and guns them out of the parking lot. And the entire time he drives, Dean wonders if this good ol’ college boy might actually be able to scratch those places that itch desperately inside of him.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Dean’s words hang in the air between them and they ring not like a request, but more-like an order. Because that’s part of it, he still needs to be in control, still needs to call the shots--even if it’s him that’s on his knees.

“Ugh…” Dylan draws out, his eyes looking Dean up and down. “I’ve only topped a couple of times, I didn’t take you for a bo--”

“You wanna fuck me... or not?” Dean interrupts him with annoyance lit in his voice. He’s tired of waiting, he’s tired of trying to quiet that fucking need in his goddamned stomach.

“Yea… yea, of course.” Dylan says, this time more direct.

“Take off your clothes.”

Dean watches as Dylan’s hands get busy immediately. Watches as he peels off his pants, his boxers and his t-shirt. He doesn’t waste time and for that Dean is grateful. College boy is a fast learner. Just like--his brain revs against the name, tries to spit it out--but he pushes it back.

Instead he makes quick work of removing his own clothes, throwing them onto the floor as he tries to fight off the initial uncomfortability of being stark ass naked in front of someone you’ve never been with before. And when he’s peeled off his socks, he sits on the edge of his bed and points for Dylan to get on his knees.

Dylan follows Dean’s fingers and kneels before him, his eyes flirting with Dean’s flaccid cock. Dean revels in the feel of those eyes on him, knows he could get hard just with this alone. With someone’s eyes on him, watching him--appreciating him.

Instead he reaches back for the nightstand and finds the bottle of lube he knew would be there. He hands it to Dylan and then climbs up the bed, just enough so his ass is flush with the edge of it, his legs bent up, and the back of his heels resting against his asscheeks.

“Make sure you’re thorough down there, but don’t fucking waste my time.” Dean barks, everything inside of him on high alert with Dylan’s eyes on the most private parts of him.

Dean waits and then feels himself clench around the coolness of the lube that Dylan drizzles over his hole.

“ _Jesus christ_.” Dean hoarses out, making his complaint known to every wall in the room around them.

Dylan laughs, cutely, goddamned him. And Dean is three seconds from sitting up and telling him to get the fuck out, when Dylan’s pointer finger swirls once, twice around his tight opening.

“Shit.” Dean sighs, his body already vibrating with the onslaught of need that is coming alive inside of him.

“Yea?” Dylan dips his finger inside, just a peek, and then comes back out and swirls around the pink ring of Dean’s once more.

Dean doesn’t answer, just presses his bottom closer to the edge of the bed, trying to get as close to Dylan as he can, trying to get that finger inside him faster than slow.

Dylan picks up on Dean’s restless energy and pours more lube over him. Then his finger is back at Dean’s opening, circling and pressing, trying to loosen that muscle up. He dips his pointer finger in, to the first knuckle and back out again. He repeats this motion and then reaches in with the entirety of his first finger.

“C’mon already.” Dean starts to feel a dam within himself rise, feels it start to knock on the inside of his ribcage. His need, quickly turns into outright desperation.

Dylan sticks two fingers in at Dean’s words, shuts him up mid sentence. And then he’s adding a third and stretching his fingers apart inside of Dean. He curls his fingers up towards the prostate and presses into it. Dean hisses, his back arching off the bed and his eyes pinched shut.

“Yea, yea.” Dean says in a mantra, because that’s it--that’s it. That’s just what he’s been craving, that’s just the place he needs to be rammed another thousand times.

Then Dylan’s fingers are gone and Dean’s hanging open and throbbing from the inside out, his throat clenching closed on some emotion that tries climbing out of his chest. Dean listens as Dylan slicks himself up, focuses on the slip and suck of Dylan’s own hand going to town on his own dick and silently prays that he hurries up.

Before Dean can think another word, Dylan is standing up and trying to climb up and over him. But Dean panics, doesn’t want to look at this stranger--not the way he used to look at sam. _Only Sam._ Instead, he pushes Dylan up enough to give him space to turn around and assume the position he’s envisioned himself in all night. His knees taste the cool sheets and his hands clench themselves into the fabric to give himself some purchase.

Dylan’s hands are there suddenly, curling around his hips like roots and pulling Dean back. And then finally, there it is, the head of his cock pressed tightly against Dean’s hole. It’s slicked up nicely, is warm and hard, and promising of everything Dean needs for it to do.

“ _Please._ ” He whispers, his heart pounding away in his chest. “Need it…”

Dylan’s pressing into him with that and he’s thick, thicker than Sam and Dean burns around the intrusion. Dean whines under his breath and clenches the sheets in his hands, harder. He waits for Dylan to bottom out inside of him, waits to feel full inside, waits to feel every aching part of him sing with the pounding of flesh within him.

“Fucking tight.” Dylan hisses, his body moving to find a better stance for fucking.

Dean wants to say something, but he bites his bottom lip and tries to not let out a cry when Dylan gives his first full thrust into him. Dean feels Dylan’s hips tight against his ass and he suddenly feels like he’s humming from the inside out, feels like he’s gonna float away if he doesn’t grip the sheets tight enough. And before he can catch a breath, Dylan’s out and snapping back in. The sound claps off every surface and pries the nails out of the coffin he’s buried inside of himself.

“Harder.” Dean orders.

Dylan fucks harder instantly, his hips smacking fiercely against Dean’s cheeks. Sounds like a staple gun, their bodies colliding forcefully. Dean feels Dylan’s cock inside of him, feels how it buries its head in the deepest parts of him, feels how it tickles against his prostate. And then Dylan’s hands are at his ass, grabbing handfuls of skin and digging crescent moons with his nails. He sounds out of breath, wheezing through his lungs, but trying to keep a pace that Dean has asked for.

But still it’s not hard enough, not fast enough. His body isn’t full enough, his chest not cracked enough to break--but he’s close, so close.

“Fuck…” Dean whines out, his shoulders shaking from where they try to keep him firmly planted. “ _Harder!_ ”

It’s Dylan’s turn to whine, his fingers digging impossibly deeper into Dean’s skin as his hips begin to thrash wildly, as he attempts to fuck him as hard as Dean needs.

The pound, pound, pound, runs in time with his heart and Dean can feel it start to shake, the box within himself that he has put away for years. It’s almost off the edge, almost there, just a couple more good fucks to jar it loose. And Dylan’s cock is stuffing itself so far into Dean, all he can see is white, all he can feel is his cock against his stomach. But his mantra remains the same: more, more, more.

Dylan is panting behind him, his cock a battering ram inside of Dean and Dean feels equally alive as he does numb inside. Feels like his insides are the flint to Dylan’s matchstick and they’re just trying to catch fire--they’re just trying to be swallowed in it.

Dean arches his hips up and back, allows Dylan to reach that spot that sings with every stroke of his cock and Dean’s almost there--almost there. He’s climbing that bridge inside of himself and he can almost touch the darkest parts of himself, can almost put his hands on it. And Dylan’s grunting now, his back curling over Dean to get the most leverage, to get as deep as he can inside of Dean.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” Dean whimpers every time Dylan pounds into him.

“Yea?” Dylan smiles behind Dean. “Ya like that?”

“Yee,” Dean feels his lungs shake inside of his ribs. “Yesss.”

Dylan picks up even more speed, Dean doesn’t even know how he’s moving so fast. Doesn’t know how he’s able to reach all of those places inside of him, but he’s doing it. He’s fucking that box right out of his chest and Dean’s almost coughing it out when Dylan reaches for his half hard cock and starts pulling it in time with every fuck into him.

“Ugh, _fuck_.” Dean slurs out, the horizon appearing before his eyes and he’s running full speed to meet it.

Then suddenly he’s there, shooting over the edge, and coming half hard all over the mattress below him. Dylan’s every fuck, milking him for all that he’s got. And with every pulse of come that is forced from his body, the more it feels like his chest is being opened with the dull side of a butter knife The tears come just as Dylan pulls out and Dean lets out a hollowed out sob as he feels the ropes of come that land on the small of his back, in long, aching pulses.

He’s crying full steam by the time Dylan is crawling up the mattress and trying to get a handle on what pushed Dean over the edge, on why he sounds like a dog dying on the side of the road--his lungs wheezing with the weight of the grief that he’s locked away for so many years.

“Hey--hey…” Dylan’s hand is at Dean’s back and rubbing soothing circles. “Did I hurt you or something?” His eyebrows pulling in raw concern.

“My--my…” Dean chokes out, his body feeling like gelatin. “Brother, my Brother.”

Dean falls to the mattress, curls into himself on his side and cries with an openness he’s never been allowed. All these years and it feels just as raw as it did the day his Brother was carved out of his chest. And the tears are there, they’re giant oceans that are running down his face and he can’t be bothered by Dylan’s worrying sounds behind him.

“Just go.” Dean hiccups out, his knees touching his lips. “Just go, please.”

Dylan questions if he should go, he paces back and forth at the foot of the bed and stops to stare down at Dean and honestly looks scared. But then, he makes up his mind and finally decides to listen to Dean’s request. He shuffles his clothes back on and makes his way quietly out of the hotel room door. And when he’s gone, Dean screams into his kneecaps. He screams and cries, claws at the flesh of his own legs until he draws blood.

He cries until he’s dry heaving the pieces of himself that he’s tried so hard to forget, back up. The image of Sam comes clearly, his eyes aching with the tears that still well and cloud his vision. This is what he wanted to see, what the box in his chest had kept so secretly from him--because it hurts too much to see the face that he used to love more than anyone could love anything.

There is Sam, smiling back at him, happy as ever--just like the last night they spent together. And Dean curls around the image of his Brother, pulls his own hands to his lips and pretends it’s the night before the world swallowed Sam whole.

Pretends his Brother is still beside him. That he’ll never have to wake up again.

That he’ll never have to let him go.


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

Lincoln, Nebraska - 2015  
_(now)_

 

Dean’s flashing his FBI badge to the officer in charge, his sunglasses still in place and hiding his bloodshot eyes.

“Agent Mulder.”

The old man, with his white mustache cocks his eyebrows hilariously at Dean. “Ain’t that interesting…”

Dean waits for the punchline, but when it doesn’t come, he presses forward. “I need to talk to the Sheriff about the disappearances on Old Cheney Rd.”

The officer dusts leftover donut crumbs off his shirt and laughs under his breath. “I’m sure you do. Say, what’s got your guys’ tighties all wound up with this case?”

“I’m not sure if I’m following?” Dean clears his throat and taps his badge on the counter.

“Agent _Scully_ was in here just twenty minutes or so ago. I assume you guys are together.” There’s another incredulous laugh that falls from his mouth.

Dean stills, tries to think back and remember if Bobby had said there would be someone else working the case. His mind comes up blank, again and again.

“Ugh, you know…” Dean quirks a corny smile. “We must have miscommunicated somewhere. I apologize. Are they over at the house now?”

“Mmmhmm, I s’pose so.”

Dean’s halfway to the house when he finally gets ahold of Bobby.

“Agent Houston.” Bobby’s gruff voice greets.

“Hey, Bobby… it’s me.”

“Dean?” Bobby questions and then sighs. “How’s the case going?”

“I think someone is already working this case, Bobby.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line, awkwardly so.

“Must’ve been another hunter who caught wind of this one, I think I’m just gonna follow up and then pack my shit and head back.”

Bobby’s still silent on the other end of the phone and Dean starts to wonder if he cut out.

“You there, Bobby?” Dean checks.

Bobby’s voice clears and then he’s rambling fast. “Ugh yea, son, I am here. Sorry, I didn’t hear ya. Didja say there is someone else already working the case?”

Dean grunts a _yes_ and then listens as Bobby drops the phone and cusses in the background. Dean laughs as though he’s standing there watching the old man fumble with his phone and cussing up a storm.

“Listen, Bobby… I’m gonna scope the house out and make sure it’s a nice and neat case. It doesn’t sound like they’ll need my help, but I’ll keep you posted.”

Dean hangs up and throws the phone onto the passenger seat. And he’s lighting up a cigarette when he lets out a laugh, because Bobby really does need a freaking vacation.

He’s fucking losing it.

The house is a bit older, most likely built in the 70’s and by the peeling paint on the front porch, it’s probably not been cared for in quite some years. It looks haunted from the outside, and Dean swears if he listens closely enough, he can hear the memories that once use to light this house up with life. But instead, he sees the spray paint that cloaks the front door and instantly knows that it’s probably been abandoned and only housing squatters, for awhile.

Dean looks down at the info he has on the two missing teens. One female, one male, both around the same age. Both runaways, their families living several towns over from there. Dean speculates that they were together, probably both ran away and had been calling this little house of horrors, home.

Dean scans the outside and looks for company, finds a cop car parked up the street a ways, but doesn’t see any movement around the house. They must be inside.

Slowly Dean walks up the steps and finds the front door is ajar. He pushes it open with his foot, his right hand tracing his gun at the back of his waistband. His eyes scan the empty entryway, forcing himself to see in the contrast of light and dark into what appears to be the kitchen at the end of the hallway. To his right is a living room, or what used to be one. There’s trash littered all over the place and a pair of rolled up sleeping bags sitting in the middle of the room.

Dean pulls out his EMF meter and watches as it bobs back and forth erratically. It whines louder as he makes his way further into the house and just when he’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, he hears footsteps above him. He spins around and peers back down the hallway and out the front door, his ears on the highest alert for more sounds.

Definitely fits the ghost M.O.

It’s quiet for a few beats, so he starts moving back down the hallway and towards the staircase that leads upstairs. When he’s at the foot of it, he scans the top landing and looks for movement. He waits a few more seconds and then starts taking the stairs up two at a time. He gets to the top in few seconds, his lungs wheezing with the built up tar in his lungs.

There’s a bedroom directly across from him and to the left is a hallway with more doors. He thinks about going for the bedroom closest to him, but then decides to head left instead. His feet make soft footfalls down the hallway, and when he comes to the first door on the right--he pushes it open. It’s a bathroom and it appears empty. A couple feet away he’s nudging open a bedroom door on the left. It also appears empty. He moves toward the end of the hall, to the last bedroom on the right and then feels the air behind him move.

Dean stills immediately, every baby hair on his body standing up and on edge. The light behind him is disturbed by a shadow, casting him in darkness momentarily, but then it moves and the light returns at his back. Dean counts to three in his mind, his right hand already reaching for his gun.

“FBI!” Dean shouts, his feet twirling him around stealthily.

The space that was behind him is quiet, just as much as it was when he first came up there. But he can’t shake the sensation that he is not alone, that he hasn’t been the entire time. With his gun up, he paces back down the hallway and scans the space around him, trying to be even more focused on the details.

He’s almost to the foot of the stairs again, when the sound of something clanking against the floor downstairs, sharpens the air in the house. Dean turns for the stairs and peers down the banister, looking for signs of life. His foot is almost touching the first stair, when something from behind him collides with the back of his head. It has him yelping as he trips past the first stair and stumbles down the rest, his ribs colliding repeatedly with the sharp points of wood as he falls.

Dean lands face first on the hard landing, his head swimming with movement as his equilibrium tries to find its center once again. The back of his head throbs, knows if he reaches back, he’s gonna feel blood. But his arms are spaghetti around him, his eyes swimming in circles as a shadowy figure moves past him.

Before blackness takes him, he can’t help but take in the details of the shadow. It’s tall, the frame bulky in a way that makes his stomach sink. The body the shadow belongs to, becomes clearer as it moves into the sunlight of the porch. Dean can’t help but breath roughly when he sees the profile of the stranger’s face.

Can’t help but want to call out his name. Can’t help but feel his lips betray him, trying hard to work around the sounds of it, but finally giving it up when no sounds can be dispensed from his mouth.

As unconsciousness befalls him, his mind is a mantra on repeat and it sounds like--

_Sam._

It’s pitch black when Dean finally peels his eyes open, the back of his head screaming around the place he was hit from behind. A cool breeze kisses across his cheeks and it has him looking up and finding that the front door is still ajar. It’s then that he realizes that he’s been out for hours. A chill travels up his spin and reassures him he’s still alive, but there’s a question that rolls itself through his mind and he can’t help but keep asking himself it over and over.

Who was it that he saw earlier? Why did it look so much like his Brother?

Dean’s heard about doppelgängers, but he’s never put much stock in it. But even a doppelgänger _can’t_ look that much like Sam. The similarities were too great, to reduce it to someone who just looked like Sam. But, it can’t be Sam-- “because he’s underground with Lucifer,” Dean finishes his thought out loud. Says it for his own ears to hear, as though somewhere deep inside he thinks he’s finally left reality and has started making Sam up.

Because that’s all it could really be. Right?

Maybe he’s the one who needs a fucking vacation and not just Bobby.

He’s walking through the door of his motel room when his phone starts ringing. Dean looks down and sees Bobby’s number lighting up the screen. It’s not the first call Bobby’s made either, Dean had two missed calls from him while he was out. He groans as he pushes the answer button.

“Hey, Bob--”

“Damn idjit!” Bobby is immediately cursing through the receiver.

Dean’s silent, the back of his head pulsing with Bobby’s disgruntled voice.

“Don’t know how to call me back or what?” Bobby continues to assault Dean’s ears.

Dean sighs heavily and moves to sit on the edge of the bed. “Listen, things went a little south at that house today.” He pinches the bridge of his nose as he scrunches his eyes shut and begs the throb at the back of his skull to stop. “Not sure what happened exactly, but I think--I think I saw…” Dean trails off, not knowing how to vocalize the words.

“Saw what? What happened?” Bobby’s voice lower this time and more concerned.

“I was scoping out the place and there was someone else there, but I was whopped over the head pretty badly and it knocked me out, but I swear on my life Bobby, I swear it with everything in me, I saw--” Dean’s voice stretches out, his ribs constricting around the name that he’s trying to force out of his mouth. “He looked so much like, Sam.”

Bobby’s quiet on the other end of the line this time and Dean already knows that the old man must be looking up the nearest psych unit to take him to, because it does sound crazy. It is crazy.

It’s impossible.

“I know it wasn’t, Bobby. I think maybe I was just hit too hard on the back of the head.” Dean tries to let loose a laugh, but it comes out strained and obvious to even himself that he’s trying too hard.

“I don’t know what you saw, son. But we both know it wasn’t Sam. Maybe it has something to do with the case, maybe what you’re working on isn’t just your standard ghost.” Bobby rationalizes and doesn’t even stumble over Dean’s confession.

Dean nods, because he knows Bobby is right. “Yea, maybe so. I’ll take another look at the house tomorrow.”

“Alright, Boy, get some sleep and call me with what you find out tomorrow.”

The line clicks after Bobby’s words and Dean’s left with the phone against his ears and a eyeful of what he saw earlier. The more and more he replays it in his head, the more he can’t be sure what he saw. And then doubt starts to grow, because maybe Bobby was right, maybe he was just hit a little harder than he thought.

Dean pulls out a cigarette, his entire body full of lit nerves that are craving the soothing lick of nicotine, and he lights it up. He takes a few slow drags and breathes them out into the air around him. The nicotine is quick and for that he is thankful, his lips smiling around the butt of his cigarette.

He’s smoked three in a row by the time he gets the message from his grumbling stomach, telling him that he’s goddamned starved. He changes into his regular clothes and checks the back of his head for signs of dried blood, but amazingly finds none.

Without much else, he’s grabbing his keys and heading back out into the night, ready for a nice, cold beer and some greasy ass diner food.

The lights in the little, Hi-Way Diner are blinding bright, either that or he’s just got some residual eye sensitivity from the blow to the back of his head. Either way, he grumbles as he waits for his Gorilla Burger and his basket of fries. His hand worries itself around the cold plastic cup that is full of Coke (a sad replacement for _Pepsi_ ) and not anything close to the frosty beer he had been anticipating. Apparently, they don’t sell beer (or Pepsi) in this little twenty-four hour joint and it’s just enough to have Dean writing the place into his list of places to go ever again.

Dean pulls out his list of things to do for the case and rewrites a new list of things to accomplish tomorrow. He scratches out the trip to the police station, because if he's gotta to see Grumpstache again, he’ll have to shoot him, just for being annoying alone. Instead he writes ‘library’ at the top of his list, as he could use some background info on the house and what kind of ghost he could be looking at.

He’s working on number five on his list, when his doe eyed little server boy brings him his food. Dean pays attention to his name tag and even offers a sincere, “Thanks, Gale.”

The boy, not much older than twenty, smiles wholeheartedly and innocent like. And if Dean wasn’t mistaken, there’s even a hint of a blush creeping on his cheeks.

“You’re welcome, sir. Anything else I can get for ya?”

Dean looks down at his plate and his mouth waters over the food he’s about to shove into his mouth. And then he’s looking back up at Gale and saying, “It’s Dean. And a bottle of ketchup would be good, thanks.”

Gale nods, his dark brown hair swinging into his eyes, before he’s turning to fetch the red condiment.

He’s a few steps away, when Dean speaks again. “Bring me another plate, too.”

Gale turns and offers a wink, before continuing on his quest.

“Here’ya go!” Gale is plopping the glass bottle down on the table and following it with an extra small plate, still smiling. “Anything else for you, Dean?”

Dean reaches for the ketchup and looks back up at Gale, looks him straight in the eyes and feels himself start to go to that all familiar closet inside of himself. “Maybe later, kiddo.” He winks, lethally, and knows the message was received, because Gale’s cheeks do fill with obvious pink then. The young kid bites his bottom lip and then turns to head back behind the counter.

The bottle is cold and hard in Dean’s hands and he wraps his fingers tightly around it, trying to center himself, trying desperately to pull himself out of the vacuum that is at the back of his brain. He can’t go there again, can’t let himself be ruled by the darkness inside of himself.

Without even thinking about it, he reaches his hand into the basket of fries in front of him, grabs a fistful and then puts them on the empty plate Gale brought him. He stares at the plate full of fries and then lets his eyes roam up to the empty seat across from him. And he swears, if he looks hard enough, he can almost see the outline of his Brother--causing him to suck in a lungful of air. The world stops in its tracks with the faint memory of Sam sitting across from him and he can do little more than to be completely caught up in it.

Sam’s smiling at him when his ears bring him back to reality with Gale topping off his Coke.

“How’s everything?”

Dean watches the memory of Sam disappear before him, feels his eyes pinch shut before opening to turn and look at Gale. “Fine, thanks.”

Gale nods and turns to walk away, swaying his hips noticeably.

Dean watches, but only for a second before his growling stomach brings him back to the food before him. And it’s become a habit he’s maintained in recent months, but he finds himself pouring ketchup on the plate with Sam’s fries and then moves on to his own plate. He pats the bottom of the bottle, encouraging it and watches the red pile until it meets his satisfaction. When it’s to his liking, he sets the bottle back down and grabs a fistful of fries and shoves them into his mouth. He moans around the salty goodness as he eyes his bacon layered burger with intent to hit it up next. And the first bite of it has him leaning his head back, chewing open mouthed and exaggerative.

“Might not have anything good to drink, but you guys aren’t kidding about the burgers!” Dean says to no one in particular, around the food in his mouth.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Dean can see Gale wiping down the counter-tops and nonchalantly lifting his own gaze towards him every few strokes he gets in. Dean immediately feels his dick stir with the heat of that gaze on him, because there’s parts of him that would love to do desperate things with the young body that is leaning against the counter and towards him.

Dean finishes his burger in under ten bites, and spends the rest of his time dipping his fries in red and tossing them into his mouth. He’s reaching for burnt crumbs when a shadow falls over the table, causing his spine to straighten in attention. Knows its Gale, before he even turns his head to see who it is.

“Would you like dessert?” Gale asks, his eyes full of questions that he doesn’t know how to verbalize. Gale’s eyes move to the full plate of fries and untouched ketchup, adding--”If you’re finished, of course.”

Dean looks at the plate and feels guilty for his half hard dick and the veil of black that is filling his brain. A whisper in the back of his head trying to convince his baby Brother to look away.

_Don’t look at me, Sammy. Don’t see me this way._

Gale shifts, his eyes offering up an open invitation for unspoken sins he’d like to commit.

And Dean fills in the spaces with his own thoughts. Knows that Gale is probably lacking experience, that he’ll be awkward and unsure, that he’ll look good under him in a way that no one has before. Not since...his Brain stumbles around the name, his mind slinking away from it like it’s poison and his thoughts press onwards into the darkest corners of his mind instead.

“What would you suggest?” Dean’s voice is coy and playful.

Gale clears his throat and starts rambling a list of specials they have, but Dean raises his finger and Gale’s lips still immediately.

“What would you have,” Dean stares at the pink lips that hang open in front of him. “Gale?” He finishes, licking his own lips.

“Pie.” Gale stammers. “Apple pie.”

“We’ve got a winner.” Dean chides, smiling.

Because damn, he really does have a fucking _winner_ on his hands.

They don’t even make it inside the motel room, before Gale’s inexperienced act fades away and in its place is a sex fox that is gonna fucking be the end of Dean.

The keys are still in the ignition when Gale is crawling over the bench seat and finding his hands at the nape of Dean’s neck. He presses his nails into the tender flesh there and then leans down to boldly claim Dean’s lips. Dean, who is caught off guard and trying to catch his breath, only to have it choked off again with the press of Gale’s lips against his own.

“Jesus…” Dean whispers when Gale comes up, his eyes looking up into the midnight orbs that pin him against the leather seat.

A sinful smile spreads across Gale’s lips and then without much warning, he is suddenly busy trying to unbutton Dean’s jeans, his teeth at Dean’s zipper, pulling it down in one sexy-as-hell movement. And Dean is just huffing puffs of breath into the car around him and literally aching around the need that has grown inside of his jeans. The ones that are being pulled down and opened with little to no wait.

The rush of it, of everything, has Dean’s balls already tightening up, threatening to blow his load right there in his jeans. This unexpected turn of events has him blushing slightly, because he hasn’t had this feeling since he was an inexperienced teenager. Dean Winchester doesn’t come prematurely, that’s just unheard of--it’s impossible.

“C’mon…” Dean whispers to himself, but Gale takes it as a needy push to move even faster.

Gale’s hands are around the thick of him suddenly, pulling him out of the cramped quarters inside his jeans and into the freedom of open space. Dean curls his fingers around the steering wheel and squeezes as tightly as he can, willing himself to get beyond his threatening orgasm. But then Gale’s fucking lips are around the head of his cock and sucking like he’s trying to pull every ounce of Dean’s milky seed from his balls.

“Fuck!” Dean shouts as Gale’s hands start twisting around the length of him and rolling his balls in sync with what his mouth is doing.

It’s too much, too fast and Dean is already too close. He’s going a million miles toward the edge and then he’s there--flying over it and coming straight into Gale’s sin as fuck mouth. Gale moans as his mouth is filled with the taste of Dean, goddamned moans and slurps like he’s only ever been hungry for one thing-- _Dean_.

Dean buries his hand into Gale’s hair and pulls him up and off of his dick. Gale has a sickly happy smile over his lips, like he’s amused with himself. And Dean wants to wipe that look off his face, wants to bend him over the hood of his car and fuck that no good look right off his goddamned face. The back of his brain itches and he wants to scratch it open wide, wants to let that darkness he’s pulled back all night, out.

He pulls Gale up and hauls him against his mouth. Dean kisses him with the promise of things to come, because if Gale thought they were through--he’s fucking in for a surprise.

Dean lets go of Gale and points to the passenger door, wordlessly telling Gale to get out. Gale complies and Dean pushes his own door open and steps into the midnight air. He fixes himself, not caring if prying eyes might see and digs into his jacket pocket for the room key.

“Here.” Dean hands the key with a big ‘401’ on it and waves Gale over to where the room is located. “I’ll be right in, just gonna grab some bags from the trunk.”

Gale takes the key and winks at Dean. “I’ll be waiting…” He says cutely, knowing well that Dean’s eyes will be following him all the way into the room.

And Dean does watch him, watches as he wiggles his ass back and forth like he’s putting on a show.

Dean swallows with want and then clenches his eyes shut and takes a shaky breath in. He holds it for a few seconds and they releases it, blowing it forcefully out between his lips. It’s simple, but it realigns him just enough to regain focus of what he had wanted to do. It has him opening his eyes and turning for his trunk, with one thing in mind.

When the trunk is open, he looks inside and scans for the backpack he knows is in there. His eyes don’t find it immediately, so he starts moving some stuff that had shifted around over the long miles he had drove. It takes him a minute, but eventually he finds the bag he’s looking for. It’s old and frayed; smells of a life that no longer exists and it makes him feel both more like himself and not like himself in the same moment. But he swallows the hollow feeling down and reaches to pull it out of the trunk. And once it’s out, he swings it over his shoulder and closes the trunk.

He’s halfway across the parking lot when the door next to his room, ‘301’ opens and out comes a shadow that makes Dean stop dead in his tracks. Dean watches as the shadow moves down the corridor of rooms, the top of the man’s head lighting up as he passes the sconce lights that are outside of every room. He watches, tries to put the colored puzzle pieces of the shadow together and feels his bones sag inside his body when his Brother’s name rolls out from under his tongue once again.

“Sam?” Dean whispers into the air, the backpack strap slipping from his shoulder, to hang from his forearm. He hardly notices when it falls from his arm completely and hits the ground, every cell in his body straining to see this all too familiar shadow in front of him.

Dean doesn’t even register his feet moving under him, his body automatically moving in the direction of the shadowed figure. As he moves, his eyes are still collecting bits and pieces of information as the other man in front of him moves. There’s a bubbling hysteria, a desperation that starts building in Dean’s chest and it has him instantly on the verge of tears.

“Sammy?” He says more loudly this time, but the shadowed figure doesn’t stop. Instead, to Dean’s horror, it moves faster away from him. “Hey...wait!!”

Dean’s full sprint as the man he’d been following slinks around the corner of the building and disappears from his line of vision. And when his eyes lose sight of the shadow in front of him, his entire body lights up with panic. Because he can’t lose him. Not again.

But by the time Dean reaches the corner, a car is gunning out of the parking lot and kicking up gravel. He scans the empty parking lot for the tall form he’d been running after and there’s no sign of the shadow that resembles so much of his Brother.

Dean stops and bends over, bracing himself up on his knees as he wheezes around the oxygen that his lungs are desperately trying to pump into his body. He coughs, gags when it tastes like a wet cigarette. He stands there for a few minutes and watches down the road that the car headed down. And he can’t help the feeling of hopelessness roll over his body, because it really does feel like he might be just chasing a ghost.

A ghost that shouldn’t even exist in the first place.

He must be goddamned crazy.

By the time Dean gets into his hotel room with the bag he retrieved from where it fell on the pavement, Gale is naked and stroking his dick on the bed.

Dean feels conflicted when he enters the room, half of him wants to tell the kid to get the fuck out and the other part of him wants to fuck him until it dislodges the crazy right out of his head and makes him start seeing straight again.

Gale watches him by the doorway, licks his lips as he rolls his forefinger over the head of his cock.

“Need you.” Gale moans, his hips arching off the bed to meet his hand.

In the low light of the room, Dean doesn’t even have to squint to see what he wants to. Gale is beautiful in all the ways...Dean swallows the name down-- _was_. There’s something about the skinny frame of Gale’s, spread out on the bed and writhing with need, that has Dean’s cock making up his goddamned mind for him.

Dean sets the backpack on the table and opens it up, shuffles around some things and pulls out a baseball t-shirt of his. Or, at least it was his until Sam laid claim to it. He holds it in front of him, takes in the dark blue sleeves and the big number eighteen on the front of it. Then he scrunches it up and brings it to his nose, tries to smell anything that is remotely linked to his Brother. But instead he comes up with a musky scent, one that is more closely associated with the lack of use in quite some years. 

“What’s that?” Gale’s voice crawls up Dean’s back from the bed behind him.

Dean turns around and looks from the shirt back to Gale. “I want you to wear this.”

Gale looks at the shirt and smiles slyly. “Baseball fan, huh?”

Dean doesn’t say anything, just tosses it to Gale and watches as it lands over his dick. The shirt tents over his hips and it's got Dean’s mind buzzing with a growing need to fist the back of that shirt, his hips hungry for the grind that is soon to be his. Somehow he wills his eyes to look away and starts undressing himself. His boots fall to the floor in a mess, followed by his jeans and lastly by his button down flannel and undershirt.

When he looks back up, Dean sees Gale on the edge of the bed, the baseball tee hugging his sharp frame and his hand lazily cupping his balls as his fingers tease the base of his achingly red cock. Dean squints then, his mind somersaulting itself into the black fog at the back of his brain, as he tries desperately to see the past through Gale. And it works, mostly, because before Dean is the blurry image of Sam. Sam, who is all of seventeen and hungry for the heat of his older Brother’s hands all over him.

“Sammy.” Dean litters into the room, without even realizing his voice gave life to the thought that is churning through his mind.

Gale looks up at him then, makes a fist out of his hand and slides it over the head of his dick. He sucks in a breath of air and bites his bottom lip, the whole while, pinning his devilish eyes against Dean’s.

“I can be whoever you want, Dean.” Gale whispers sinfully. “As long as you get over here and fuck me, I don’t fucking care.”

Dean stirs then, his body moving closer to the bed with a bottle of lube tucked into his hand. His eyes never leave the arching cheekbones, or the dark hair that dusts across Gale’s forehead, as he finally reaches the place Gale sits. And there’s absolutely no thoughts that goes through his brain as he sinks to his knees and turns his attention to the precome smeared head of Gale’s dick.

Suddenly he’s fucking hungry, he’s goddamned starved for the taste of his Brother.

Licking his lips, Dean looks up into Gale’s eyes and agrees to play the game of pretend with him. “Don’t look at me, that’s all I ask.”

Gale smiles, his head nodding quietly as he lays back on the bed and fulfills Dean’s request.

“I mean it. Not at all.” Dean follows, his mind wandering to the dull eyes of those that had dared to do it before.

“I’m not looking,” Gale huffs in feigned annoyance, his hips jumping from the bed, causing his dick to sway back and forth in front of Dean’s face. “You’re giving me blue balls, fuck… please.”

“Alright,” Dean agrees. “ _Sammy_.” He adds, testing the waters and finding that he likes the way his Brother’s name sounds in the room around him, as it vibrates off the walls.

Dean brings his attention back to the erect need in front of him and places his hands up to curl around it, giving a quick jerk up and then letting his thumb roll over the head. His finger smears precome over the bundle of nerves at the top and takes delight when he hears grunting from the bed.

“You like that, baby boy?”

“Mmm--yes..” A voice greets him back. It’s not Sam’s, but he can pretend.

Dean gives the length another few pumps with his fist and then licks his lips as he brings his mouth down around his _Brother’s_ dick. Immediately he is greeted with the sweet, musky taste of precome against his tongue and he can’t help but moan in response. He lets his tongue rest against the underside of it, lets the weight of _Sam’s_ cock ground him to the earth. He gives a few sucks, hollows out his cheeks and fists the lower half of his _Brother’s_ big dick.

“Fuuckk.” _Sam’s_ voice comes, his ribs rolling under the skin of his chest as he tries to get deeper into Dean’s mouth.

And Dean lets him, lets him fuck himself right up against his throat. He gags with the head of _Sam’s_ cock wedged tightly against the back of his tongue, but he breathes through it and keeps still. Instead he focuses his attention to his _Brother’s_ balls, cups them in his palms and rolls them across his fingers. He tugs on them gently and then moves his hand back up to the shaft and gives it a few twists. Then he starts to pull off, lets his tongue twirl around the head, before he comes up completely.

“Gonna come for me, _Sammy_?” Dean feels his own dick bob at the words coming from his mouth.

_Sam_ whines on the bed, his hips bucking off the bed to meet Dean’s closed fist. “Yea, yea--Dean, yea.” His words are breathy whispers that tickle against Dean’s ears.

“Show me, little Brother--c’mon.” Dean purrs, his eyes watching the rapid rise and fall of his _Brother’s_ chest as he gets closer and closer.

_Sam’s_ hips fuck up harder and more sloppily, his breath hitching in the back of his throat and Dean can feel him coming apart under his gaze, his hand still meeting every buck of those thin hips.

“Fuck….” Sam chokes out, his body shuddering around the orgasm that’s finally descended upon him. “Dean...fuck.”

Dean watches with delight as _Sam_ pulses long ropes of come all over his quivering stomach. And it’s then that he finally brings his own hand down to his own needy dick and starts pulling fast strokes. Pulls and pulls and pulls.

It doesn’t take him long, not with the image of _Sam_ so gone for him, right there before his eyes. It takes him under a minute before he’s standing up and groaning wildly as he comes all over _Sam’s_ belly, too. His eyes pinch shut as he fucks every ounce of come inside of him, out. And when he feels the orgasm start to recoil back into his body, he opens his eyes back up and notices his goddamned knees are shaking with the whine of his already sagging dick.

“Jesus.” Dean lets himself go and wipes sweat from his brow, his eyes taking stock of the mess on _Sam’s_ stomach.

Dean traces the come all the way up to _Sam’s_ neck, sees how it’s sprayed there wonderfully, he could almost lick it off himself. It’d probably be delicious, the taste of both of them at the same time. And he’s got one knee on the bed, with just that intent, when he catches honey eyes reflecting up at him in the low light of the bedside lamp.

“That was great.” Gale says victoriously. “ _Kinky_ , but awesome.”

Dean’s mind hums loudly, like he’s surrounded by the impossible sound of white noise. His eyes fizzle out, the world around him goes desperately pale. Then it goes completely black and white. And then it goes mind numbingly white.

The last thing he hears are the angry words-- “You’re _not_ my Brother,” coming from his own mouth.


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

Lincoln, Nebraska - 2015  
_(now)_

 

The cold press of fingers against Dean’s throat, has his eyes slamming wide open. The world around him is impossibly bright and his eyes sting with the overwhelming light that floods into his vision. For the first few seconds that he regains consciousness, he can’t make anything out around him. All he can register is the ghost sensation of the fingers that were just at his throat and the shuffling of footsteps nearby.

He tries to vocalize himself, to alert whoever it is that’s near him that he’s awake, but the harder he tries, the more he realizes that he can’t make a sound. Panic ebbs up his spine as he tries to remember where he is, but his mind is a blank canvas. The specifics of ‘who/why/where/when’ are all lost on him, no matter how hard he calls for them.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut and tries to blink the blurry vision away. It’s slow and it takes him a few tries, but eventually the color in the room starts to bleed into focus. The first thing he sees, clear as day, is the space that is undoubtedly under a bed. There’s feet on the other side, in the light of the room, moving back and forth. And all he can do is watch them as they move, while he continues to try and place himself and who those feet might belong to.

But his brain comes up blank, again and again.

He tries to lift his head and feels relief when it complies, then tries to move his limbs under him to push the rest of himself up. It’s a struggle, he grunts with the weight of his bones and the stiffness of his muscles, but he gets himself on his hands and knees and stills when a rolling tide of dizziness falls over him.

“Whoa, easy…” There’s a hand at his back suddenly and Dean’s stomach sinks with the familiarity of the voice behind him.

No.

Dean tries to turn towards the body behind him, but finds it harder than it should be. Every ounce of him is completely tapped of energy, his eyes hurt like he hasn’t slept for days and yet he can’t remember a thing.

“Good, you’re alive.” The familiar voice states, not with relief but with nonchalance. “Can’t imagine having to haul out two bodies.”

Bodies? Dean’s spine curls away from his ribs. He coughs, tries to clear his throat and make way for the words that are circling through his brain.

“Who…” Dean works out, but it’s gravelly at best. “Where am I? What…” He searches for something, anything that can pin him to some kind of reality he can be sure of.

“Lincoln, Nebraska.” The voice chides behind him, followed by the sounds of something dragging against the floor. “You had a little _too_ much fun with, _whoever_ this is.”

Dean feels the earth below him shift, because the voice is undeniable. Maybe he’s dead, maybe he finally went out in an explosion of gunpowder and violence.

“You’re in bad shape, Dean.” The voice is closer this time.

A glass of water comes into view and Dean doesn’t move to reach it. It’s mostly due to the fact that he can’t move yet and also because his mind is spinning its wheels in his head. Because this is wrong, everything is wrong and it's got his skin crawling with some kind of need to desperately escape the weird cloud of insanity he must have dug himself into.

“You should drink this, I’m sure you’re dehydrated.” The water moves to the table to the left of Dean, not that Dean can see it, but because Dean can hear the glass clink against the wood.

Dean breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, feels his chest burn with the need to regain his bearings and fast. A certain kind of flight or fight sensation drips into his stomach and he can feel his muscles twitching beneath his skin as he tries to make up his mind as to just what it is that he wants to do. With what he _needs_ to do.

“I’ve lost my mind.” Dean says out loud, more so to himself than to anyone else.

There’s chuckling behind him, followed by the sound of plastic being manipulated.

The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand at complete attention as he feels eyes trace his spine. And it’s then that he wills himself up into a completely upright position, his butt sitting on the heels of his feet. The details of the room immediately start to soak into his mind, his brain traffic jamming against the front of his skull as he looks to the right and sees blood smeared sheets.

“No.” Dean whispers, half in disbelief and half in horror. “No, not again.”

“Yea, I didn’t think it was your first rodeo.”

Dean feels agitation flare in his gut at those words, “Shut up.”

There’s more laughter behind him and the sound of something heavy dropping onto the ground. It sends a vibration through the floor and jolts Dean where he sits. It has him twisting his neck finally to peer into the room behind him, his curiosity overriding the fear in his ribs. Because he’s equal measures of wanting to see what he’s done and also not wanting to admit that he’s fucking crazy and hallucinating things. Things like a Brother who is light years below ground and can’t be in the same room with him.

But when Dean turns his body, his eyes flitting across the mess the room is, the blood splattered on the headboard and the sheets. He takes stock of the overturned chairs and the tv that lays sideways on the floor. And then his eyes are crawling over a bloody mess of a body, his throat tightening when he focuses on the face and realizes finally who the boy is. Or _was_.

Gale.

The name rings through his ears as he pictures Gale smiling up at him.

Dean tries to stretch his mind further into the void, to scratch the surface of something that will tell him what happened. But his memories are sealed like a vault, there’s no breaking in. There’s only a dead body in front of him and the stark realization that he’s once again to blame.

He moves his eyes from the body and over to the hands that are wrapping Gale’s feet up in plastic. Hands that are methodical as they work, wrapping the feet and then the legs, slowly working their way up to the torso. And Dean focuses on them, his entire body stilling around the undeniable fact of what he’s seeing.

Sam’s hands.

Those are _Sam’s_ hands.

Dean’s eyes jump to the bulky frame that is hunched down and at work, his eyes roaming the curve of the back and tracing their way up to the shoulder length brown hair. And Dean’s heart is in his throat, his stomach at his feet. Because he’s seeing a goddamned ghost. A ghost that is not only haunting him, but is cleaning up after him.

Dean’s fingers curl into the flesh of his wrist, his fingernails digging to pinch. When he’s got a good grip, he squeezes as hard as he can, waits for the pain to jar him loose from this hallucination he’s somehow fallen into. When bright pearls of his own blood hit the air, his wrist screams and even though he’s sparked blood--the image before him doesn’t sway.

“No, no, no…” Dean’s voice is husky and desperate.

In an instant, his body takes over and he’s up and standing on wobbly legs. The flight or fight response has finally dialed in and he needs to get the fuck out of the room, needs to get the fuck out of that city, out of the state. He needs to get as fucking far away from the things his brain has made up for him to see.

His keys are on the table, next to the glass that sits there for him. He reaches for the keyring and is halfway to the door when he trips over his own goddamned shoes.

“Fuck!!” Dean curses angrily, but it comes out sounding scared.

The ground greets the palms of his hands, but he doesn’t let it stop him Instead he finds his arms and legs moving quickly beneath him, as he crawls himself the rest of the way to the door. And his bloodied fingers are around the knob when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

Flight turns instantly into fight.

“No!” Dean lifts himself upright and spins around, brings his right fist up and hauls it across the sharpness of Sam’s cheekbone.

Sam stumbles backward, caught off guard, but he doesn’t lose his footing. He brings up his left hand to his cheek and then looks up at Dean. “We need to talk...”

Dean lurches forward, his chest tight with fear, with confusion, with desperation. He gets close enough to launch his left fist into Sam’s ribs. “Shut the,” Dean swings with his right and connects with Sam’s jaw. “-- _fuck_ up!!!”

“Dean.” Sam tries again, but Dean hauls another good punch onto the left side of Sam’s face.

“Don’t call me that.” Dean stills where he stands, his breathing ragged and then he’s moving quickly towards Sam again. “Get the fuck out of my head!”

Sam’s prepared for Dean, his own hands up and grabbing a hold of Dean’s right shoulder before plowing him a good one across the cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”

“Fuck you.” Dean spits, his arms swinging lethally again, but missing.

Sam catches Dean’s next throw and uses the momentum to turn Dean around and get him in a chokehold. “Like I said, I don’t _want_ to hurt you, Dean.”

“Get the fuck off of me!” Dean wheezes through his restricted airway, before he arches his back and throws the heel of his foot back to connect with Sam’s dick.

“Jesus!” Sam whines, his arms letting go of Dean finally, as he hunches over in pain.

Dean uses the moment to get air back in his lungs, his body turning to face the impostor who is parading through his thoughts like he’s fucking real. He steps closer to Sam and reaches for his throat, his hands stretched wide and his fingers aching to curl around Sam’s neck. He almost connects, when Sam straightens and hauls a powerful uppercut into Dean’s jaw.

“Have it your way.” Sam grunts as he shakes his fist.

Dean sees stars, the back of his brain shakes against his skull and he swears that for a hallucination, Sam definitely hits fucking hard. His feet stumble under him as he rolls through the pain of having Sam’s knuckles against his jaw. He wheezes through his nose and waits for the six overlapping images of Sam to disappear from his view. But when a few seconds pass and his double vision corrects itself, Sam is still standing before him--his chest huffing with exertion.

“You’re not here.” Dean accuses. “It’s impossible, you can’t be here.”

Sam just watches him, both of their eyes meeting after a few seconds.

“No, stop!” Dean cries out, but it sounds like he’s begging.

Dean feels his fight response kick back in and he’s running towards Sam with every ounce of anger inside of his bones, lit and alive. He punches Sam square in the face and uses the opportunity of Sam’s rolling eyes, to get a hold of Sam’s neck. His fingers curl around Sam’s throat desperate for one thing, to make him disappear. He winds his hands around the flesh there and squeezes to choke as hard as he can.

“Not real.” Dean mutters. “You’re _not_ real.”

Sam’s airway is reduced to a pinhole as he begins to struggle for Dean to let go. But the more he fights, the worse off he gets and eventually Dean wrestles Sam onto the ground, his body atop of him, his hands never moving from around his Brother’s throat.

 _Go away._ Dean pleads with his mind, starts making dumb promises in his head to a god that isn’t real, that he’ll do all these silly things if he just takes the crazy away. _I won’t touch another fucking cigarette, I’ll stop all of this--just please, please--stop this. Please._

Sam’s face reddens, purples and then begins to blue. Dean watches with strict intent to see just when Sam will begin to fade from view, but the longer he squeezes and the longer Sam struggles, the more scared he gets. Dean starts whispering a string of _pleases_ , his eyes scrunching tightly shut, everything in him hoping that when he opens them back up that this madness will be gone.

But when he opens his eyes, Sam’s still there. And he gets a good look at him before Sam’s left fist connects like something deadly against the side of his face.

The room sways around Dean as he falls, a screaming ring clamoring in his ear. When he lands on the ground beside the image of Sam--that he’s clearly dreamed up, he feels his chest seize up with an emotion he can’t quite name. Doesn’t even get the chance to try, before a cloud of black swallows him whole.

The last thing he feels is a tear rolling down his cheek.

Dean’s ears burn with the growling roar of Baby’s engine. It’s constant and lulling in its sound, something that he’s been accustomed to sleeping through over the course of his life. And then he notices the cool breeze that is gliding over his cheek. With it comes the scent of pine and it instantly has the rest of his brain lighting up with consciousness.

His eyes blink open and he’s half expecting daylight to greet him, but is surprised to see darkness instead. His entire face throbs as he lifts his head from where it rests against the cold pane of glass on the passenger side. And he’s halfway awake when he finally realizes that he can’t be alone.

He looks over to the driver’s seat and expects to see a disgruntled old man at the wheel. It wouldn’t be Bobby’s first time cleaning up Dean’s mess, wouldn’t be the first time he’s come and got him when he was too fucked for his own good. But when his eyes attach themselves instead to the sharp structure of Sam’s face and his impossibly brown shaggy hair, his heart lurches.

“Stop.” Dean says and it clears the air in the car with the intensity of his voice. “Stop the car.”

Sam looks over at him, smiles and shakes his head ‘no’. “We gotta find a place to get rid of Mr. Goodtime. Can’t stop yet.”

Dean’s brain spins its wheels in the flashbacks of what he can remember. And the only thing he can find to focus on, is the hallucination that sits beside him. The piece of himself he lost to Stull Cemetery, the one he’s spent the last five years mourning and making a mess out of his life over. Apparently he’s flirted with the dark parts of himself too often, because somehow it now sits outside of himself and exists on its own.

“When we get rid of him, we can talk.” Sam says, looks over at Dean and then back at the road.

He could fight it, could open his car door and roll out of this nightmare, but instead Dean looks out against the night time horizon in front of them. Baby’s headlights paint the curves of the road and give life to the edges of things that can’t quite be seen. He lets his eyes rest on the road ahead of them and counts the mile markers as they fly by. By his count, twenty of them go by before he sees a sign for ‘Wilderness Park’.

The car makes a sharp turn down the road where the sign points them further in and Dean counts another twenty minutes before the car bobs its way over to the side of the road and rolls to a stop. He listens to the keys as they jingle in the off position from the ignition and he thinks of a thousand different ways he can get the fuck away from there--sans imaginary Sam of course.

There’s nothing but a thick coat of silence in the car, only made more exaggerative by the pitch black darkness they find themselves in, due their wooded surroundings. It feels like Dean could actually crawl into the silence as if it were a sleeping bag, like he could pull the edges of it up over his head and let it protect him from every goddamned thing his broken mind might try to come up with. But instead, he’s brought back to the fact that he’s alone in a car with something he can’t even trust as real and it has him gripping the door handle tightly.

“It’s _me_.” Sam’s voice is soft, little. “I know it’s hard to grasp, hell…” Sam scoffs at his own words. “Sometimes _I_ don’t even quite believe it myself.”

Dean looks out the windshield and tries to find something to focus on, because his ears are full of words he can’t even begin to decipher the meaning of.

“I wanted to tell ya sooner, but Bobby wanted to make sure…” Sam’s voice trails off, as though he’s contemplating how to say his next words. “Wanted to make sure that I was one-hundred percent, _me_.”

Dean’s lungs seize at Bobby’s name.

“I get it, it’s hard to believe that I’m top side. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Something dislodges in Dean’s brain and it settles in the bottom of his heart instead.

Could it really be him?

“Bobby.” Dean says flatly. “He--he knows about...about--you?” It sounds like a foreign language when Dean hears himself rattling off the glass windows around him.

Sam makes a sound and it sounds like _yes_.

“Where’s my phone?”

“Here.”

Dean’s phone is slid across the bench seat to where he sits and it taps the side of his left thigh softly.

“He’ll tell you the same thing.” Sam says and then he’s opening his car door. “I’ll give you time to talk to him, I’m gonna go find a place to start digging.”

Dean doesn’t even listen to Sam’s words, instead his shaking fingers try to make sense of his dialpad. His brain tries to work efficiently enough as he digs up Bobby’s number in his contacts and hovers to press ‘send’. When the phone starts ringing, Dean swallows the aching ball of anxiety that has apparently been lodged in his throat for quite awhile. He waits for impossible eternities between every ring and by the sixth, the line is being forward to voicemail.

“Bobby Singer, you know the drill.” Followed by an ear piercing beep.

It takes Dean a second to find his words, “Bobby, I need you to call me right away. I’m with...I’m with.” Dean sighs. “Fuck, listen, it sounds crazy--maybe I am, but I’m with _Sam_.” He says the name carefully. “ _Call me_.”

Dean hangs up and stares at the fading screen. He thinks about calling Lisa then, thinks about hearing anyone’s voice that he can trust, that he can know is absolutely real. His thumb is scrolling through his contacts in search of the one person who he doesn’t even deserve to call, but knowing she’ll answer--because she always answers.

The driver’s side door opens when Dean finally locates Lisa’s name.

“Alright, I found a place.” Sam’s head is ducked low, his eyes peering into the car. “I’m gonna need your help hauling that mess of yours to it.”

Dean feels a shiver of dread travel from his toes to the base of his skull. Even if he wanted to comply, he doesn’t even know if he has the strength to do it. Doesn’t even know if he wants to be going into the woods with someone who says they’re Sam, when he still can’t be sure.

“Didja talk to, Bobby?” Sam’s voice sounds exasperated.

“Didn’t answer.”

Sam sighs heavily. “Look, the faster we get this over with, the quicker we can head back to Sioux Falls.”

“What makes you think you’re going anywhere with me?” Dean says corsely. “Last I remember, this is my car and I’ll go wherever the fuck I damn well please.”

The driver’s seat moves as Sam spins to lower his body back behind the wheel.

“That’s true.” Sam agrees. “But I think you need to hear what Bobby has to say, before you make any hot headed decisions.”

“Stop telling me what I _need_.” Dean lashes out. “As far as I can tell, you are just a big fucking joke my brain is playing on me. I could be fucking out cold somewhere; this could all be a dream.”

“I’m _real_ , Dean.” Sam says each word with absolute precision. “I don’t know how to make you believe that, but I am--you need to wrap your head around that eventually.”

Dean looks over at the figure in the seat next to him and he thinks quietly to himself, letting Sam’s words absorb slowly. And then his mind flashes to the spine of a book and it has him clearing his throat to speak.

“Tell me about your favorite book.” It’s a test.

Sam is quiet for a few beats and then he quietly starts to speak, just loud enough for Dean to hear.

“Before him, he saw two roads, both equally straight--but he did see two and that terrified him.” Sam stops, the heel of his hand coming to rest on the steering wheel. “That’s all I can remember, the rest is a bit hazy.”

Dean’s heart stills in his chest.

“A lot of my memories are broken, there’s lots of things that I know I should know, but I just can’t seem to remember them.” Sam’s voice is calm as he speaks. “Like, just now, you asked about my favorite book and immediately I know it’s, Les Misérables. And I should know every page of that book, but I can only remember those few sentences--the rest escapes me.”

Dean feels sadness wash over him at Sam’s words, even when half of him is swearing under his breath. Because that is just like something a hallucinated Sam would say. But it’s the honesty that bleeds from Sam’s words that had Dean hanging onto every syllable. And then as if by reflex, Dean’s hand finds itself tangled in the rope of his necklace.

“Do you remember anything else about that book?” It’s an honest question.

Sam makes a thinking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Anything at all?” Dean tries, finding that he’s placing all his trust in the necklace that hangs from his neck. “Something important.”

Sam’s fingers tap on the steering wheel as he takes several more minutes to think. He pinches the bridge of his nose and curses under his breath. “I’m sorry…”

Dean furrows his brows as he traces the outline of Sam’s face, the only parts of it that he can see, because the moonlight is clinging to the corners of his profile.

“I wish I could remember, for you. I know it’s important whatever it is, I just can’t remember why or what makes it so.”

It is a confession that hollows out Dean’s chest, parts of him aching around the slightest possibility that this is truly his Brother next to him. A Brother who somehow escaped the worst confines known to mankind, to angels and demons alike. A Brother who is in literal pieces next to him, one who is trying so hard to put those pieces of himself back together just for the sake of making Dean believe in him. Even when he doesn’t recognize what the broken pieces are for. Or how they belong together.

“You kept it.” Dean whispers, his fingers still tangled in the black cord. “You kept it all that time. And I didn’t know.”

Sam’s face turns then, his eyes attaching to the side of Dean’s face. “Kept what?” He asks innocently.

Dean debates telling his Brother, but decides to let it go--for now. “I still have your copy.” Dean says instead.

“Ah--” Sam nods. “I could definitely use another read through.”

Dean’s stomach pulls in on itself as he lets go of the necklace and feels the weight of the golden face lie over his chest once again. And there’s something inside of him that shifts under the feel of it, something that has him looking over at his Brother and truly seeing him for the first time. He lets his eyes wander the plains of Sam’s face, takes in the broadness of his frame and finally settles on his hands and how they’re wound around the steering wheel.

“What happened?” It leaves Dean’s mouth, before he can retract it. Parts of him don’t even know what he means by it, but other parts of him shiver under the possibilities that Sam might return.

Sam laughs, as though whatever he’s about to say could be funny in the least. “Bobby sent us on the same case apparently, didn’t bother to tell either one of us though.” Sam shrugs and then continues. “I saw you at the house and got spooked, so yea--sorry about that.” He motions to the back of his head, as though he can feel the sharp pain that still aches at the base of Dean’s skull. “And then, somehow we were staying at the same place. Right next to each other.” Sam smiles to himself at his words. “Guess time doesn’t change some things.” And then he smiles at Dean.

Dean who listens quietly in the passenger seat, picking at the scabs on his knuckles.

“I was eating dinner and doing case work when the sounds started.” Sam turns to stare at the back of his own hands. “At first it was hard to tell what was happening, but then the screams started and fuck…” His voice fades as he remembers the events. “I thought you were being attacked, so I didn’t think about it--I basically broke down the door to get to ya.” Sam looks out the windshield and then clears his throat. “But it was too late, he was already gone and you were passed out. Fast forward, and here we are.”

Dean processes the events and can’t deny that they all fall into place with what he knows. That it makes sense, as much as it could--under the circumstances. But then he shakes his head, more so to himself than to Sam.

“I mean, _what happened_?” It’s a loaded question, one that is probably out of place in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska--with Dean’s dead mistake still in the backseat. But it’s already out of Dean’s mouth and he can’t do anything about it now.

The air between them shifts as the question hangs in the car. Sam swallows, shakes his own head and twists his palms around the leather of the steering wheel. And Dean can’t help but feel an emotion work its way up his throat, his eyes filling with tears in response.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have..” Dean tries.

“No, no--it’s fine.” Sam reassures. “I just, I--I don’t know what to tell ya.”

It’s blunt, stings a little and it has Dean sitting up straighter.

“I don’t know how or why. All I remember is showing up at Bobby’s house about six months ago and being completely out of it.” Sam looks at Dean then, as though he’s contemplating something. “Bobby had a shit load of questions, obviously. But the only thing I could say for days..” Sam pauses gently. “Was only your name.”

Dean feels a sob rumble its way through his chest and he’s not strong enough to control it. It escapes his mouth and has him curling forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he presses his face into the palms of his hands. His Brother has been back for half of a year and Bobby didn’t tell him a goddamned thing, even if he just sat across from the old bastard just earlier in the week and was a fucking mess. Not only was Sam alive, but he’s sitting next to him in the driver’s seat and breathing the same air as him.

“Sam.” Dean cries through his fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my promises to you. I tried, I tried so fucking hard. And I just couldn’t get it together, I’m a goddamned mess.” He says and motions into the backseat, as if to say-- _case in point_.

Sam’s hand lands on the back of Dean’s neck and offers a small squeeze before the heat of it disappears again. And it causes Dean’s stomach to do a somersault and then sink into his hips.

“That makes two of us then.” Sam whispers.

Dean is reaching for Sam then, his arms open and aching to curl around the body they know best. And he buries his face into the crook of Sam’s neck and breathes in the familiar scent of home, his chest dislodging five years worth of wet sobs against his neck. He cries for minutes, his heart celebrating in the reality of Sam being alive, before he realizes that Sam’s arms are still at his side and not around him.

It has the waterworks stopping suddenly as he pulls back to look into those beautiful eyes he’s always loved. But when he sees them up close in the darkness, there’s a vacancy in them that has his lungs charlie horsing in his ribs. Sam makes a sound then, his eyes closing as if he knows that his secret is out. And Dean’s body sags away from where it’s wound tightly around Sam, until he’s halfway back to the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry…” Sam confesses.

Dean looks at the apology as it hangs in the air, and can’t help but feel like it’s some cheap ‘my condolences’ card that Sam hastily filled out. There’s no emotion behind the words, every vowel falling flat against Dean’s ears. And somewhere deep inside, Dean knows it has something to do with the Cage--but it still hurts like a mother fucker.

Because, Sam’s alive--but he’s a patchwork quilt with half his memories stolen.

It’ll get better, with time. Or that’s what Dean tells himself as he reaches over to pat Sam’s leg in a reassuring manner.

“Don’t apologize, I’m just glad you’re here.” Dean looks over at Sam, who stares back quietly. “And that you’re _real_.”

Sam smiles then and Dean mirrors one back.

They dump Gale’s body into a shallow hole in the ground and cover up the makeshift grave as well as they can. Dean whispers a litany of apologies to him, to the other two rotting corpses in different states. He promises to all three, that he’ll never do it again--that he’s sorry for the monster inside of him, the one that suffocated them in the blackness of his despair.

Dean smokes half a pack of cigarettes before they get back into the car, Sam in the passenger seat this time. He has to overlook the way Sam doesn’t make some gross comment about how he smells like an ashtray, how he never even blinked his goddamned eyes when he lit up in the first place. And just the stress of Sam not noticing things Dean knows he definitely would, if he..if he was-- his brain fumbles around the word _normal_ and deletes it immediately. Because there is no _normal_ after you’ve been to nightmarish places like Sam’s been.

They leave Lincoln and the sun is just starting to break through the horizon. They drive for as long as their aching eyes and bones will let them. It takes about two hours, but they run into Sioux City, Iowa and decide to put up for a few hours.

Dean asks for a single bed at the counter of some run down motel named Shady Hills Inn. When he says the words, he winces and looks outside to where Sam sits in the impala. He thinks about correcting himself and asking for a double, but then thinks otherwise. With the keys in hand, he silently tells himself that if Sam has some objections to bedding together, that he’ll take the floor.

When they get into the room, Dean scans the room and then finds Sam standing at the foot of the bed awkwardly. He feels guilty then, because maybe Sam just isn’t ready for being that close--not yet. And his brain instantly jerks with the thought of, what if he never wants to be close again? What if?

Dean clenches his fists at the possibility and tries to fight the thoughts off as he comes to stand next to Sam. They both stand there peering down at the single bed for a few moments before Dean’s breaking the silence.

“They were out of doubles.” It’s a white lie, but Dean can’t bare to tell Sam the truth. “If--if you are uncomfortable with--with…” He stumbles with his words, suddenly feeling like the uncomfortable one.

“It’s fine.” Sam finally speaks.

Dean nods, doesn’t try to make it a big thing if it doesn’t need to be one. Instead he strips down to just his undershirt and his boxers and crawls into bed without much more to do about it. Tries to make it feel as normal as possible, but his chest aches around the heat of Sam’s body as he climbs under the covers a few minutes later.

Sam turns off his bedside lamp and suddenly the room is painted black, except for the stray ray of sunlight that weasels its way through the hole in the blackout curtain. And suddenly Dean finds himself in the same bed as his Brother, his mind doing racetracks around the inside of his skull. He’s nervous, he’s happy, he’s sad--it’s a high contrast of emotions that find themselves a home behind his eyes.

“Get some sleep.” Sam’s voice sounds from the other side of the bed, as though he can hear Dean’s spinning thoughts.

“You too.” Dean insists just the same.

But both of them lay there quietly, neither one sleeping--both of them just existing together with the even sway of their breaths. Dean turns on his left side, facing the back of his Brother and he fights every muscle in his body from betraying him and reaching across the distance. He’s starved with the want to feel Sam, with the need to be close and yet knowing that all those things he wants are right there but are still somehow untouchable.

And it’s hell. Goddamned torture.

Sam shifts then, his body turning until he’s laying on his right side and facing Dean. His left hand reaches over the distance between them and curls around Dean’s hand. He squeezes gently and soothes his thumb in circles along the back of Dean’s hand.

Dean squeezes back and builds a steel wall between his face and the heart in his chest that his breaking messily behind his ribs.

Because yes, Sam is back--Sam is here. Yet, Sam is also different in a way that makes Dean question everything.

But Sam’s trying. They both are.

Dean falls asleep then, his mind and body light years beyond exhausted, his hand still wrapped up in Sam’s. It’s enough to soothe him right into the kind of sleep he hasn’t known for years.


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

Sioux City, Iowa - 2015  
_(now)_

 

Dean wakes to an empty bed, his body jolting with terror as he questions whether everything had been just a dream. His eyes hurt with the ache of sharp knuckles, with the bruising that is undoubtedly painting his face. It stings as he tries to pry his lashes apart, but he welcomes it. He takes comfort in the hurt, because it means that everything is real--that Sam is _real_.

That he’s alive.

When the room comes into view, he makes a protesting sound in the back of his throat. The sun is too bright and his eyes are screaming in their sockets, but still he reaches for a body that isn’t there.

“Here.” A hand with a steaming cup of joe is immediately in his line of vision. “It’s black, like you like--I think...” It’s Sam’s voice.

Dean feels himself fight the rolling tide of tears in his chest, his ears still trying to adjust to the familiarity of Sam. He takes the cup and he shifts up slowly so he’s sitting against the headboard. He takes a sip of the boiling hot drink and feels it calm the hysterics in his lungs, his lips upturning because Sam had remembered his preference for black coffee.

“Thanks.” Dean says, offering his Brother a smile. “You sleep okay?”

Sam seems troubled by this question, as though he hadn’t even thought about it himself. His brows pull and then smooth out as he tries to find the right answer to give.

Dean waits, patiently, can only imagine how horribly Sam does sleep. After Hell, it took himself fucking months to sleep through the night. He can’t even fathom what the Cage has done to his Brother, can’t even imagine the things that probably keep Sam awake at night.

He’s lost in that thought when Sam gives him an answer.

“I didn’t.” Sam starts, but his voice trails off into the back of his throat.

Sam looks at Dean like he’s satisfied with that answer and gives a small shrug. He points to a book on the table and it causes Dean’s chest to squeeze. Les Misérables sits on the table next to Sam and Dean looks from it--directly into Sam’s eyes.

“I can’t sleep, I haven’t really since--since, I-uh..ya know.” Sam makes a waving motion over his body. “So I dug this out and gave it a read through, but only got so far--before I remembered.” Sam’s eyes leave Dean’s, and travel for the necklace around Dean’s neck.

Dean feels naked with Sam’s eyes on him there, his focus so intently wound around the object that has meant so much to the both of them over the course of their lives. But he lets Sam look at it, lets him see it hanging there around his neck and hopes he understands that it was hell for him too--when he threw it away. That he also had hundreds of sleepless nights, hating himself for doing what he did.

“I found it about a year ago,” Dean starts then. “Can you believe that? You were gone for years, in that place.” Dean motions to the ground. “And even then, I still didn’t know you kept it--wasn’t until, Ben, dug around in the impala--that he found it. Can’t believe you kept it all that time, Sammy. Can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it either, before you--before you…”

“I should have told you.” Sam’s words are confessions. “I should have, but Dean--it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I had you, that was enough. Always was.”

Dean worries his fingers around his coffee cup and looks up at his Brother and then quickly away. “I’m still sorry…”

“Don’t be.” Sam smiles, but it looks forced somehow--like he’s trying too hard.

“So, you…” Dean tries to change the subject, because there’s something uncomfortable crawling its way along the back of his brain. “You don’t sleep...like--at all?”

“No.”

Dean wants to cry at Sam’s answer, wants to crawl around him and protect him from those things that prevent him from finding sleep. Wants to cry because Sam is remembering things and that’s good, but he’s still flat toned in contrast to the colorful Brother he, himself remembers. But instead, he offers a nod back and takes another sip of his coffee.

“I’ll see if Bobby has some of those ‘knock outs’ when we get back to his place.” Dean tries to give Sam some hope. Those suckers are horse pills and they’ll knock the biggest of them out for at least twelve hours straight. “They’ll help you sleep.”

Sam’s mouth slants, as he undoubtedly chews on the inside of his cheek. His eyes meet Dean’s and then pull away, before meeting them again quickly and pulling back away.

“No.” Sam says, his eyes finally landing for good on Dean’s. “I mean, we’ve tried them--and they don’t work.”

Dean’s voice balls in his throat and his eyes must give him away, must be full of shock and a lick of terror.

“I’m different.” Sam tries. “I’m not like I was before.” He says it in a factual way, as though they’re just case points he’s highlighting over.

Dean worries his thumbs on the back of his coffee cup, digs his nails into the styrofoam as he tries to hear what his Brother is saying. Because, it's been five years, of course he is different--they both are. Dean fumbles through the things he’s done, of the boys he killed in Sam’s name and nods his head.

“We’re both different.” Dean corrects Sam. “Listen, you’ve seen the shit I’ve done first hand. I ain’t proud of it; I’m not proud of who I was when you were gone.”

Sam listens, his eyes watching over Dean’s hands as they grip the coffee cup.

“But we’re both here, now-- _together_.” Dean reiterates, his left hand carding through the air between him and Sam to make his point clear. “That’s all that matters.”

Sam nods, but his eyes are littered with words that he doesn’t say, as though he wants to argue with Dean, but then decides against it. Dean sighs for small miracles, because his chest is already full to the brim with emotions and he’s barely holding himself together.

“We’ll figure the rest out. I promise.” Dean extends, hoping that Sam hears him. That he hears the truth in every single one of those words.

Sam’s eyes leave Dean’s then and instead they pin themselves to the open window. It’s quiet between them, but it’s somehow not uncomfortable. Dean follows his gaze and looks out the window with his Brother. It’s the simple things like this that he’s missed the most. Just the early mornings, with a coffee in hand and his Brother nearby.

“I’m sorry.” Sam states, more matter of factly than he is apologetic. His eyes stay where they are, his attention still somewhere beyond the window.

Dean puts his cup down and scoots to the end of the bed, letting his hand fall on the mattress next to his Brother’s. He looks over and tries to sense what Sam is apologizing for, whether it’s for his bruised ribs or busted lip. Whether it’s for the fact that he didn’t come find Dean sooner. Or if he’s sorry that he left at all in the first place.

But Dean decides Sam shouldn’t be sorry for any of it.

“Don’t be.” Dean reassures, his hand clapping around Sam’s knee as he echoes Sam’s previous words.

Sam watches Dean’s hand where it lands, but doesn’t flinch away from it.

Sam looks at Dean, arches that beautiful face towards his and smiles. It’s an honest expression, but it’s meddled with secrets in his eyes. Dean tries to look beyond it, tries to just appreciate the morning sun as it kisses Sam’s cheeks. Tries to just let his body enjoy this small moment he’s somehow found himself in.

But the look in Sam’s eyes is cold, colder than they used to be. And in a way that Dean wishes they weren’t. The warming gold flecks in those hazel eyes, are desaturated and barely there. Dean remembers how bold they were, how bright and beautiful those eyes could be. How warm they could make him feel.

And maybe that’s what Sam’s sorry for, Dean realizes. Maybe he’s sorry that he’s broken in a way that can’t be fixed. In a way that maybe Sam worries he can’t love. It’s incredulous, this thought, especially when Dean thinks about the wasteland behind him.

Dean laughs under his breath and finishes his coffee, before patting his Brother’s knee once more and finally finding the courage to stand. Without another word, he’s heading for the bathroom and the promises of a steaming shower. His bones already rejoicing at just the thought of it.

Before he closes the door, he peeks out to where Sam still sits and smiles at his back.

“Bitch.” He says, playfully, trying to lighten the mood in the room, like the sun has been trying to do all morning.

Sam turns to face Dean, a lost look on his features. “What?” His brows pull into a question.

Dean stands there and watches his Brother’s expression, knows that Sam was probably lost in thought and didn’t hear him.

“Bitch.” Dean repeats, his heart waiting for the tried and true response.

Confusion washes over Sam’s features in response, as though he’s never heard the word a day in his life. Dean waits for Sam to understand, to get it, to remember. But the longer he stands there, watching, the more his lungs shrivel up inside of his chest and bury themselves in his stomach.

Dean closes the bathroom door behind him and grips the knob tightly. He tries breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, tries to settle the panic that is roaring its head in his chest. Tries to tell himself that it’s just a symptom of the Cage, that all his Brother needs is time. But the more he tries to tell himself that, the more he feels that familiar knot of tears worry itself in his throat.

Dean closes his eyes and instantly sees his Brother’s confused face, the one that tries to paint itself familiar--just for him. And it’s then, that Dean feels the crawling beast of dread wind up the length of his spine, as a realization makes itself home in his brain.

Maybe what came back from that pit, wasn’t even fully his Brother to begin with.

Two hours later, they’re eating lunch at a diner in town, when Dean’s phone starts to ring. He fishes it out of his pocket and looks at the caller id.

It’s Bobby.

 _Fucking finally_ … Dean thinks to himself as he pushes the answer button.

“Hey Joe!” Dean answers, makes eye contact with Sam across the table and motions that he’ll be right back.

Sam gives him a nod and throws back another handful of fries.

Dean’s barely outside when he starts shouting. “Bobby, I don’t--I don’t know if it’s him. What if it isn’t him?”

There’s a long breath on the other end of line, followed by the sound of Bobby scratching his beard.

“It’s him.”

Dean lets Bobby’s words marinate inside of him for a second, before his mouth jars loose and starts moving again.

“How can you be sure, huh? How?” Dean is trying to not sound panicked.

“Listen, this ain’t the time or place to go over this. Just trust me when I say that it’s him.”

Dean laughs outright. “Trust you? You gotta be fucking kidding me right now.”

Bobby is silent on the other end, there’s movement and then the creaking sound of a chair.

“I ain’t gonna tell you that you’re wrong to feel that way. If I were you, I’d be pissed three times over. But you gotta know somewhere, deep down, that I kept him from you for good reasons.” Bobby pauses, makes a slurping noise. “You were living the life you always wanted, Dean. Maybe you were miserable, but you got out of the life. And Sam, he’s different and I wanted to be sure it was him.”

“He’s my Brother, Bobby! Of course I wanted him back!” Dean yells now, more than just shouting. Tries to make it so his breath hits Bobby’s cheek through the distance.

“I just didn’t want to break open old wounds, son. ‘Specially when I was still tryna figure out just what crawled out of that pit.”

Dean clenches his jaw, tries to move past the blazing anger in his chest--long enough to ask the question he’s really been itching to ask.

“What’s--” Dean starts and then finds himself leaning against the side of the diner, his body somehow trying to prepare himself. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing that I can tell. I put him through all the tests, they all come back negative.” Bobby sighs, scratches his chin again. As though, he’s carefully thinking over his next words. “It might just be what that Cage did to him.”

Dean feels a wave a nausea course through his chest at the words.

“I wouldn’t expect him to come out of that thing unscathed, son. He was down there for years, it’s a miracle he’s top side again. I say we count our blessings and move on with our lives.” Bobby sips at his glass again. “Ain’t it better to have him around as is, than not at all? That’s how you gotta look at it, Dean. It’s the only way.”

Dean turns to stare through the glass window, his eyes scanning the rows of booths until they land on the back of his Brother’s head. He ponders this question and knows without even blinking once, that he’ll take whatever he can get. He’ll just have to adjust, they both will. It must be hard for Sam, too. Or so he figures.

“Okay.” Dean settles, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. “Maybe it’s just gonna take some time, ya think?” His voice hopeful in a way that betrays him.

“It could, but what if never does? Gotta make your peace with it.” Bobby all but whispers. “We’ll talk about this more when you make it back here.”

“Okay, Bobby.”

Dean hangs up the phone and palms his eyes, trying to push the need to cry back down. He pulls out his cigarettes and lights one up, inhales it half down and begs the nicotine to instill some peace within his ribs. And he’s putting it out when Sam comes out of the diner door.

“Everything good?”

Dean looks at him, calculates his question and tries to find a believable answer inside of himself.

“Yea, Sammy.” Dean says, more so for himself than for Sam. “Everything’s good.”

They’re driving down the two lane highway, in route back to Sioux Falls and the sun is high overhead. The windows are down, Sam’s request--and Dean’s got his old Metallica tape blaring through the speakers. Baby roars beneath them as they head through the belly of America’s plains. And Dean can’t stop from looking over every now and again, his chest momentarily flaring with panic at the thought of an empty passenger seat. But every time he looks over, Sam’s there--right there. Every time reassures him more and more, and for the first time in five years, Dean feels like he’s truly wearing his skin again.

The road is endless before them on the horizon and the body next to him breathes, it holds warmth and it fits in all the places the impala remembers him. Sam’s right knee still rubs against the leather on the door, his left foot still rests in the worn carpet on the floor. Sam’s left hand still rests in the seat, his fist around a cold bottle of Coke and Dean smiles, because his preference is still Coke after all of these years.

Dean makes it a game, tries to count all of the ways that his Brother is just the same. And the more he counts, the calmer he feels about it.

Neither of them are perfect, both of them have faced their demons. Dean’s not the same person he was when that hole swallowed Sam up, he smokes more than he likes to admit and there’s a darkness in his chest that he’ll never be able to pry out again. There’s still something haunting his ribs every time he breathes and maybe it’ll go away some day. Maybe it won’t.

They’re both broken in ways that may never be mended. Their souls are blackened and in Sam’s case, probably missing. But together, they’re still somehow whole.

Sam looks over at him then, the setting sun catching up in his eyes and for a second Dean sees the warmth in them that he used to know. Dean smiles then, his heart racing in his chest, as Sam smiles back.

 _It’s like a joke_ , Dean thinks. One that goes like--

‘There’s two monsters, driving side by side--down the road. Which one will find their soul again, first?’

Dean looks back towards the road and decides the answer, his right hand quietly winding itself around his Brother’s hand.

Because _his_ soul, or at least, the only part of it that ever mattered--is sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

And as long as they have each other, he doesn’t need anything else.

 

Fin.

 

\--

 

 _“Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.”_ _  
_ _-_ _Victor Hugo, Les Misérables_

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it to the end, again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving this fic a read! 
> 
> And if you liked it, please let me know! Kudos & comments feed the writer's soul (and each one is greatly appreciated)! 
> 
> <33


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